1 Hi^ 




!!li 



^'llllliiilliil 






Class 




^i^ 



Book. Tfe 

Goi)yii^htN°_ 



1 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE GRAFTON HISTORICAL SERIES 

Edited by HENRY R. STILES, A.M., M.D. 



The Grafton Historical Series 

Edited by Henry R. Stiles, A.M., M.D. 

12mo. Cloth, gilt top 



In Olde Connecticut 

By Charles Burr Todd 

Frontispiece, $1.25 net (postage 10c.) 



Historic Hadley 

By Alice Morehouse Walker 

Illustrated, $1.00 net (postage 10c.) 



King Philip's War 

By George W. Ellis and 

John E. Morris 

Illustrated, $2.00 net (postage 15c.) 



In Olde Massachusetts 

By Charles Burr Todd 

Illustrated, $1.50 net (postage 10c.) 



In Press 



A History of Mattapoisett and Old 
Rochester, Massachusetts 



The Diary of Reverend Enos Hitchcock 
A Chaplain in The Revolution 



The Cherokee Indians 
By Thomas Valentine Parker, Ph.D. 



Historic Graveyards of Maryland and 

their Inscriptions 

By Helen W. Ridgely 



In Olde New York 
By Charles Burr Todd 



THE GRAFTON PRESS 

70 Fifth Avenue 6 Beacon Street 

New York Boston 



IN 



OLDE MASSACHUSETTS 

SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES AND PLACES 

DURING THE EARLY DAYS OF THE 

COMMONWEALTH 



BY 

CHARLES BURR TODD 

Author of "In Olde Connecticut" "The Story of the City of 
New York," "The True Aaron Burr" 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



FfcS' 



I LIBRARY of OONGRESSI 
' Two Copies Roceived j 

JUL 2 liiWr j 

yOUSSi /Ol XX.c, No. j 
COPY b. I 



Copyright, 1907, 
By the GRAFTON PRESS. 



FOREWORD 

rr^O the sons and daughters of Massachusetts, who 
-*- love her history and traditions, this Httle book is 
dedicated. 

Many things given therein were dug from mines 
never before explored by the literary craftsman, and 
have the value of original discoveries. They were 
first printed in various journals between the years 
1880-1890, which fact should be borne in mind by the 
reader who discovers that certain conditions portrayed 
in the descriptive articles no longer exist. 

C. B. T. 
May, 1907. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Cambridge in Midsummer (1883) . 1 

II A Day in Lexington ... 8 

III Concord Memories , . .14 

IV Autumn Days in Quincy (1883) . 21 
V Brook Farm in 1881 ... 29 

VI A Visit to Plymouth (1882) . 36 

VII A Day at Green Harbor (1882) . 46 

VIII Salem 55 

IX Another View of Salem . . 65 

X MUrblehead Scenes (1885) . , 69 

XI Quaint Old Barnstable . . 75 

XII Nantucket Stories ... 85 

XIII Nantucket's First Tea Party . 90 

XrV Ships and Sailors of Nantucket . 97 

XV An Anti-Slavery Pioneer . . 107 

XVI The Sea Fight off MADDEtiUE- 

cham ..... 112 
XVII A Typical Nantucket Merchant . 117 
XVIII The Sea Kings of Nantucket . 126 
XIX Wrecks and Wrecking . . 142 
XX Nantucket Entertains the Gov- 
ernor 150 



VUl 



Contents 









PAGE 


XXI 


The Mashpees, 1885 




161 


XXII 


Provincetown 




173 


XXIII 


Martha's Vineyard (1882) . 




179 


XXIV 


Northampton 




187 


XXV 


Historic Deerfield 




195 


XXVI 


PiTTsriELD, A Home of Poets, 


1885 


200 


XXVII 


Williamstown the Beautiful 






(1885) .... 


. 


204 


XXVIII 


Monument Mountain . 


, 


209 


XXIX 


Lenox in 1883 


, 


215 


XXX 


The Hoosac Tunnel . 


, 


222 


XXXI 


The Cape Cod Canal a Quarter- 






Century Ago 




230 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

y 

The Washington Elm, Cambridge Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Washington's Headquarters, Cambridge 4 ^ 

The Bridge at Concord 14 " 

The Old Quincy House 26 ' 

Pilgrim HaU, Plymouth 36 

Daniel Webster's Home, Green Harbor 48 

The Custom House at Salem 66 

View of Marblehead Harbor 70 

A Typical Nantucket House 90 

The Bark Canton 130 , 

The Edwards Ehn, Northampton 190 

The Stone Face on Monument ^Mountain, Stockbridge . . 210 -^ 

Indian Burial Place, Stockbridge 214 '' 

The Hawthorne Cottage, Lenox , 218' 



IN OLDE MASSACHUSETTS 



IN OLDE MASSACHUSETTS 

CHAPTER I 

CAMBRIDGE IN MIDSUMMER, 1883 

CAMBRIDGE in midsummer is vastly different 
from the Cambridge of the college year. Except 
for a few members of the summer classes, under- 
graduate life is still; professors and tutors are off to 
mountain or seashore; only the bursar and janitors 
remain, while under the classic elms, instead of grave, 
spectacled scholars one meets painters, glaziers, uphol- 
sterers, and other members of the renovating corps. 
Most of the wealthy and cultivated families Avho make 
the place their winter home have also gone, and one 
discovers how dull, so far as mere physical animation 
is concerned, a university town may be without the 
university life. To the dreamy or reflective visitor, 
however, the place presents now its most interesting 
aspect. He can loiter about the college quadrangles 
and assimilate whatever about them is venerable in 
history, grand in effort, or noble through association, 
without being stumbled over by hurrying undergradu- 
ates or eyed askance by oflScious proctors. Then, too, 
the historic houses in the town are more accessible, and 



2 In Olde Massachusetts 

the aged citizens who remain, more chatty and gossipy 
than in the busier season. 

Could anything be more worthy or venerable, for 
instance, than Massachusetts Hall — a mouldy, mossy 
brick pile on the west of the quadrangle, built in 1718 
at the expense of the Government, and christened with 
the name of the colony? All the glory of the State 
seems to invest it. Or the Old Wadsworth House, on 
Harvard Street, built in 1726, the home of the early 
presidents of the college, the headquarters of Washing- 
ton and Lee, the gathering place of all the patriot 
leaders of the Revolution — one feels that the authori- 
ties cannot be aware of its history, to have put it to the 
uses which it bears — a dormitory for students and an 
office for bursar and janitor. Harvard Hall is another 
of the time-honored structures in the quadrangle. It 
was built by order of the General Court in 1765, and 
from its roof, in 1775, 1,000 pounds of lead were taken 
and made into bullets for the needy Continentals. 
Washington was received there in 1789. In the first 
Stoughton Hall, also within the quadrangle, the Pro- 
visional Congress held its sessions, and mapped out 
the plan of the opening campaign. 

The present Stoughton Hall, erected in 1805, is 
notable for the many eminent men who have been 
sheltered within its walls; Edward Everett, Josiah 
Quincy, the Peabody brothers, Caleb Cushing, Horatio 
Greenough, Sumner, Hilliard, Hoar, Hale, and Holmes 



Cambridge in Midsummer 3 

being among them. HoUis Hall, next south of Stough- 
ton, was also noteworthy in this respect; Prescott, 
Emerson, Wendell PhilHps, Charles Francis Adams, 
and Thoreau having been among its occupants. 

But Harvard is not all of Cambridge; there is as 
much without as within the campus to interest the 
tourist. One scarcely realizes the historical importance 
of the place until he stands beneath the Washington 
elm beside the ancient Common. This Common i^ 
noteworthy because here the first American army was 
marshaled, the American flag was first unfurled, 
and the raw Continental levies were organized and 
drilled for the attack on Bunker Hill. The elm is 
famous because under it Washington took command 
of the army, and because from a little stand built high 
up in its branches he could watch the movements of 
his antagonists in any direction. The old tree has been 
surrounded by an iron railing, in front of which is a 
granite tablet bearing this inscription, written by 
Longfellow: 

"Under this tree Washington first took command 
of the American army, July 3, 1775." 

The old relic has long been engaged in a pathetic 
struggle with age and decay. Nearly all of its original 
limbs have decayed from the top down, leaving only 
their stumps attached to the parent trunk, and most of 
what is green about it has sprung from these stumps, 
or from the vigorous old trunk. 



4 In Olde Massachusetts 

Under this elm the thinker is prone to yield to Cam- 
bridge priority among American historic places. Lex- 
ington and Concord were mere cmeutes. This was the 
point of decision, the matrix of nationality, the birth- 
place of concerted, organized resistance, while Putnam, 
spurring here on the news of Lexington, taking com- 
mand of the excited, unprovided farmers, sending 
hourly expresses to Trumbull at Lebanon for arms, 
powder, provisions, and finally leading the organized 
battalions up to Bunker Hill, is the true liistoric figure- 
piece of the Revolution. 

No town boasts such a wealth of ancient and note- 
worthy houses as Cambridge. A few minutes' walk 
from the old oak, on Brattle Street, is a fine old-time 
mansion, seated on a terrace a little back from the 
street, which possesses a character, a dignity, that 
would render it a marked house even to one unac- 
quainted with its history. This is the old Wasliington 
Headquarters, better known during the last forty years 
as the home of Longfellow. Its history dates back 
to 1739, when it was built by one Col. John Vassal. 
In the troubles of 1775, Vassal espoused the British 
cause, and was obliged to flee into the English lines, 
whereupon Col. John Glover, with his Marblehead 
regiment, took possession. In July, 1775, Washington 
fixed his headquarters here, and remained until the 
following February. Madam Washington and her 
maids arrived in December, and held many levees and 



rX 







a 


ij 






o 


be 


















~ 


■-^ 


^^ 


-^_ 


« 




<; 


"* 


U 


E 


c/l 


^ 










K 


^ 


H 


_c 










•< 


X 


U' 


CC 


o 


T, 


a 


O 






















"^ 


•^ 




.^^ 






,^' 


ll 


j^ 


J^ 


p 


C^ 


H 




O 


^ 


;« 


'■■ 


s 

< 


1 



Cambridge in Midsummer 5 

dinner parties here, it is said, through the winter. 
After the war several gentlemen owned it for short 
periods. 

During Dr. Craigie's occupancy Talleyrand and the 
Duke of Kent were entertained there. Jared Sparks 
resided there in 1833. Edward Everett was also a 
resident at one time. In 1837 Longfellow, on his 
return from Europe to assume the professor's chair in 
Harvard, took possession of the mansion, and in 1843 
purchased it. Of its subsequent history it is not neces- 
sary to speak. 

The park about the house comprises some eight 
acres. Passing up the broad graveled walk, we 
sounded the old-fashioned knocker on the door, and 
presently a pleasant-faced matron — the housekeeper 
— answered the summons. To our inquiry if visitors 
were now admitted to the library, she replied that they 
were not, as the family was away, and the rooms had 
been closed until their return; then, seeing our look of 
disappointment, she inquired if we had come far, and 
on our informing her that we were from New York 
and members of the guild, she kindly admitted us to 
the study. From the wide hall we stepped at once into 
this study — a large, airy front room on the right as 
one enters. A round center-table occupied the middle 
of the room, on which were grouped the poet's favorite 
books, several manuscript poems as they came from 
his hand, his inkstand, pen, and other familiar articles. 



6 In Olde Massachusetts 

Mr. Ernest Longfellow's fine portrait of his father in a 
corner of the room is a noteworthy feature'. The fur- 
niture, table, and all the appointments of the room 
are as they were left by the former occupant, and we 
learned that it was the intention of the family to pre- 
serve them in this condition. 

Down Brattle Street a quarter of a mile further, on 
the opposite side, is Elmwood, the home of the Lowells 
for two generations, and for years the seat of James 
Russell Lowell. This house, too, has a history; it was 
built about 1760, and previous to the Revolution was 
the home of Lieut. -Gov. Thomas Olivers, the last of the 
English colonial rulers. Olivers abdicated in 1775, 
in compliance, as he explained, with the command of a 
mob of 4,000 persons who had surrounded his house. 
A little later it was used as a hospital for the wounded 
in the skirmish on Bunker Hill, and the field opposite 
was taken for the burial of the dead. Elbridge Gerry 
resided here for a term of years, his successor being the 
Rev. Charles Lowell, father of the poet. The house 
and grounds could not be quainter or more delightfully 
rural if they were a hundred miles in the interior. The 
original mansion, the great pines and elms, the old 
barn, outhouses, and orchard, have been preserved as 
they existed a hundred years ago. 

Another mansion notable in letters is the Holmes 
House, near the Common, between Kirkland Street 
and North Avenue, an old gambrel-roofed structure. 



Cambridge in Midsummer 7 

with the mosses of more than one hundred and fifty 
years clinging to its clapboards. Here the Committee 
of Safety planned the organization of the army; it was 
also for a short time the headquarters of Washington. 
Some years after the war the place came into the 
possession of Judge Oliver Wendell, maternal grand- 
father of the poet, from whom it passed to the Rev. 
Abiel Holmes, the father of the Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table. "Old Ironsides" was one of the many 
poems ^vritten within its walls. It is now the property 
of the college. 

The Lee, the Fayerweather, the Brattle, the Water- 
house, and other mansions have famous and interest- 
ing histories; but we have perhaps said enough to give 
the reader an idea of what a midsummer walk in Cam- 
bridge may develop. 



CHAPTER II 

A DAY IN LEXINGTON 

npHE drive from Boston to Lexington is one rarely 
-■■ taken by tourists, but is a most interesting excur- 
sion nevertheless, particularly if one has for cicerone 
one familiar v^ith the towns and their history. Getting 
over the Charles and beyond the suburbs, one is sur- 
prised to find himself in a region so wild and sparsely 
populated. The land is sterile, the hill pastures 
covered with sweet fern and whortleberry bushes, and 
the farmhouses few and far between. We followed 
pretty definitely the route of the British on the fateful 
morning of the 19th of April, and in an hour and a half 
drove into Arlington, the only considerable town on 
the way. In 1775 it was a little hamlet bearing its 
aboriginal name, but famous for its tavern — the Black 
Horse, — which was the meeting place of both the town 
committees of safety and supplies. " The floor of this 
tavern was stained with the first blood shed in the 
Revolution," observed my friend as we drove past. 
After Paul Revere dashed into Lexington at midnight 
with his note of alarm, scouts were sent down the 
Boston road as far as Arlington to give notice of the 



A Day in Lexington 9 

enemy's approach. One of these videttes was nearly 
surprised in the tavern by the British advance, another, 
Samuel Whittemore by name, was shot, bayoneted, 
and left for dead in the street opposite, and after his 
assailants left, was borne bleeding into the tavern 
where his wounds were dressed. He eventually re- 
covered. 

Three hours after leaving Boston we drove into 
Lexington. The village has escaped the fate of many 
Massachusetts towns and is as quietly rural now as a 
hundred years ago. A long main street, shaded by 
elms, and a pretty green of perhaps an acre, surrounded 
by straggling village houses, are its prominent features. 
At the south end of the green is a tall flagstaflF, bearing 
aloft a motto which informs the tourist that on that spot 
American Freedom was born. Further north, on the 
mound where many of Captain Parker's men "abided 
the event" that April morning, stands a monument, 
erected by the citizens of Lexington at the expense of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in memory of 
their fellow-citizens. Ensign Robert Monroe, and 
Messrs. John Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Har- 
rington, Jr., Isaac Muzzey, Caleb Harrington, and 
John Brown, of Lexington, and Asahel Porter, of 
Woburn, " who fell on this field, the first victims to the 
sword of British Tyranny and Oppression, on the 
morning of the ever memorable Nineteenth of April, 
1775." 



10 In Olde Massachusetts 

"The die was cast. The blood of these martyrs, In 
the cause of God and their country, was the cement of 
the Union of these States, then colonies, and gave the 
spring to the spirit, firmness, and resolution of their 
citizens. They rose as one man to avenge their 
brethren's Blood, and at the point of the sword to assert 
and defend their native rights. They nobly dared to 
be free. The contest was long, bloody, and affecting. 
Righteous Heaven approved the solemn appeal. Vic- 
tory crowned their arms; the Peace, Liberty and In- 
dependence of the United States was their glorious 
reward." 

Some of the local incidents of the fight, as narrated 
by my friend, are given in the books and need not be 
repeated here; to others, however, he imparted so novel 
and realistic a tone that I shall venture to repeat them. 
Leading me to a spot on the Common a little north of 
the site of the old meeting-house, he remarked : " Right 
here fell Jonathan Harrington. His wife stood in her 
door yonder watching him, and saw him fall, partly 
rise and fall again, with the blood streaming from his 
breast; at last he crept across the road and died at her 
feet. The ammunition was stored in the meeting- 
house, and four men were there filling their cartridge 
boxes when the firing began. One of them, Joshua 
Simonds, cocked his musket, and ensconced himself 
beside an open cask of powder, declaring that he would 
blow the building to pieces before that powder should 



A Day in Lexington 11 

charge His Majesty's muskets." "Another instance 
of resolution is found in Jonas Parker, who had often 
sworn that he would never run from the British. As 
they appeared he loaded his musket, placed his hat 
with his ammunition in it on the ground before him, 
and remained there loading and firing until killed with 
the bayonet." "In the old glebe house yonder, on 
Hancock Street, then occupied by the Rev. Sylvester 
Clark, John Hancock and Samuel Adams watched the 
progress of the fight; they would no doubt have taken 
part in it had they not been restrained by a guard of a 
sergeant and eight men. As the British left the town, 
marching toward Concord, they withdrew to a hill 
partly covered by forest southeast of the house. Wait- 
ing here, Adams, from the bare summit of a rock, 
observing the commotion in the town below, remarked 
with a prophet's insight, ' What a glorious morning for 
America is this!'" 

There is quite a history and some romance connected 
with the presence of the two patriots in Lexington that 
morning. On the arrival, a short time before, of King 
George's orders to hang them in Boston, if caught, 
they became proscribed men, and sought a refuge with 
the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Lexington, a relation of Han- 
cock. Mrs. Thomas Hancock, widow of the great 
merchant, and aunt of the Governor, with her pro- 
tegee. Miss Dolly Quincy, then affianced to the Gov- 
ernor, were also present. Miss Dolly was the belle of 



12 In Olde Massachusetts 

Boston, very beautiful and wilful withal, and on this 
occasion the cause of some trouble to her somewhat 
elderly lover, for against his urgent entreaties she per- 
sisted in viewing the fight from her chamber window. 
Learning that their capture was one of the objects of 
the expedition, the two patriots, as the British passed 
on, retired to the house of the Rev. Mr. Jones, in 
Woburn, the ladies accompanying them. Next day 
the wilful Miss Dolly proposed returning to her father, 
Judge Edmund Quincy, in Boston, but Mr. Hancock 
said decidedly that she should not return while there 
was a British bayonet in Boston. "Recollect, Mr. 
Hancock," she replied, "that I am not under your 
control yet: I shall go in to my father to-morrow." 
She was overruled, however, and the whole party, a 
few days later, passed down through Connecticut to 
the seat of Thaddeus Burr in Fairfield, where, in the 
following August, Miss Dolly and the Governor were 
married. Tradition says they rode on this occasion 
in a light carriage drawn by four horses, with coachmen 
and footmen in attendance. 

Meanwhile, in Lexington the Committee of Safety 
had dispatched a swift courier to Watertown, with 
news of the morning's affray, and the committee there 
at once commissioned a messenger. Trail Bissel, to 
alarm the colonies. I have seen the credentials which 
this messenger carried, stating that the bearer. Trail 
Bissel, was charged to alarm the country quite to Con- 



A Day in Lexington 13 

necticut, and desiring all patriots to furnish him fresh 
horses as needed. From indorsements on it by the 
committees of the various towns it appears that it left 
Watertown at 10 a.m. on April 19th (Wednesday), 
reached Brookline at 11 a.m., and Norwich at 4 p.m. on 
Thursday; New London at 7 p.m., LjTne on Friday 
morning at 1, Saybrook at 4 a.m., Killingworth at 7 a.m., 
Guilford at 10 a.m., Branford at noon. New Haven in 
the afternoon, Fairfield at 8 a.m. on Saturday, New 
York on Sunday at 4 p.m.. New Brunswick the next 
day at 2 a.m., Princeton at 6, and Philadelphia in the 
afternoon. 



CHAPTER III 

CONCORD MEMORIES 

/^ONCORD is, or should be, the Mecca of the cul- 
^-^ tivated; one might search far in the Old World 
or the New and not find a town of such varied literary 
and historic interest. Memories of Hawthorne and 
Emerson, of Thoreau, Channing, and Margaret FuUei- 
invest it, and there still remains the scholarly society 
that properly-accredited visitors have long found so 
pleasant. 

One cannot walk far in the old town without finding 
something to please the fancy or stir the pulse. The 
goal of most tourists is the river and its famous bridge 
— a half-mile from town ; but on the way thither one 
meets a structure quite as famous in its way — the Old 
Manse of Emerson and Hawthorne. It is quite old, 
and stands mossy and stately behind an avenue of elm 
and maple, with its numerous narrow-paned windows 
in front, and one lone outlook from its quaint dormer; 
still habitable and inhabited, although nearly one hun- 
dred and twenty years have passed since its stout 
frame was raised. A pretty green lawn surrounds the 
house, and an apple orchard slopes in the rear to the 




The Bridge at Concord 
Showing the Monuments at Each End ol' tlie Bridge 



Concord Memories 15 

Concord. The house was built for the ministers of 
the town, and, save a short interregnum filled by 
Hawthorne, has always been occupied by them or 
their descendants. The room above the dining-room 
is the most notable. There Emerson wrote many 
of his best poems, and there the "Mosses from an 
Old Manse" were put into form and sent out to de- 
light the world. From its northern window, it is said, 
the wife of the Rev. William Emerson watched the fight 
on Concord Bridge. It is but a stone's tlirow — a few 
steps along the road, a sharp turn to the left, and 
down a little knoll through the gloom of somber 
pines, until, under two ancient elms that saw the 
volleys of 1775, appear the river and the bridge. 

It cannot be said that the people of Concord are in- 
different to the preservation of their historic places. 
Two monuments mark the battleground, and when 
the old bridge became unsafe they built a new one — 
an exact copy of the old. On the hither side of the 
stream is a plain granite shaft, erected in 1836, bearing 
this inscription by Emerson: "Here on the 19th of 
April, 1775, was made the first forcible resistance to 
British aggression. On the opposite bank stood the 
American militia, and on this spot the first of the 
enemy fell in the war of the Revolution, which gave 
independence to these United States. In gratitude to 
God, and in the love of freedom, this monument was 
erected A.D. 1836." But after many years it was per- 



16 In Olde Massachusetts 

ceived by the people of Concord that to commemorate 
with monuments the spot where your enemy fell, and 
leave unmarked the ground where your patriot fore- 
fathers bled, was neither appropriate nor patriotic, and 
Mr. D. C. French, a young sculptor of the town, was 
commissioned to design a bronze statue to commemorate 
the minute-men's stand for liberty. Few statues of 
historic meaning are so simple and appropriate. The 
central idea is the minute-man in toil-stained attire, 
with ancient flintlock firmly grasped. The stern, tense 
visage of the man is admirably shown. The figure 
leans upon an old-fashioned plow, and stands on a 
simple granite base, on which are chiseled Emerson's 
well-known lines: 

" By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's sun unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

The two British soldiers left dead on the ground 
were buried on the afternoon of the Concord fight, by 
the stone wall near by. The grave is now protected 
by a raiUng, and marked by the inscription, "Grave 
of British soldiers," on a stone in the wall above it. 

Except the Old Manse, the houses of literary in- 
terest are all on the other side of the town. If from the 
village green one strolls down the Lexington road, a 
leisurely walk of five minutes will bring him to a fork 
in the road, facing which, on the right, is a plain. 



Concord Memories 17 

square country house, painted white, with the tradi- 
tional picket fence in front, and sundry pines and 
maples bending protectingly over its square roofs. A 
drive leads through the road to a yellow barn in the 
rear, and flanking this is a garden of half an acre, in 
which, in their season, roses and a rare collection of 
hollyhocks may be found. This was for many years 
the home of Emerson. It has received and entertained 
the notables of two generations. 

The left branch of the fork — the old Boston Road 
— leads in an eighth of a mile to Wayside, the former 
home of Hawthorne. The house pleases the esthetic 
taste rather more than that of the philosopher. It is 
nestled under one of the sharp spurs that define the 
Concord Valley, and deep groves of pines on the hill- 
side and at its base contrast prettily with the green of 
the lawn and the neutral tints of the cottage. The 
house was later occupied by George P. Lathrop, 
the son-in-law of Hawthorne. The Orchard House, the 
former home of the Alcott family, adjoined Wayside 
on the north. Mr. Alcott removed from it as the in- 
firmities of age came on, and resided in the village with 
a widowed daughter, Mrs. Pratt. In the winter Miss 
Louisa M. Alcott also made her home with them. In 
the same yard with the Alcott house stood a little, vine- 
wreathed chapel, in which the lectures and discussions 
of the School of Philosophy were held. 

The only house in Concord that can be said to have 



18 In Olde Massachusetts 

been distinctively Thoreau's home was the little shed 
on a sand bar of Walden Pond, which he built as a 
protest against the follies and complex wants of society. 
This house contained one room ten feet wide by fifteen 
long, a closet, a window, two trap-doors, and a brick 
chimney at one end. Its timbers were grown on the 
spot, the boards for its covering were procured from 
the deserted shanty of a railway laborer, and the whole 
cost of the structure did not exceed $30. In this house, 
through the most inclement season of the year — from 
July to May — the philosopher lived at an expense of 
$8.76 — a striking reproof of modern folly and extrava- 
gance. The house on the Virginia road where Thoreau 
was born was standing in 1883, and the house where 
he died was later the residence of the Alcotts. 

Perhaps the tourist will derive his most novel and 
permanent impressions of Concord from the cemeteries. 
The Hill Burying-ground, rising directly from the town 
square, is the most ancient, its oldest stone bearing 
date of 1677. Major John Buttrick, who commanded 
the patriots at the bridge, and the Rev. William Emer- 
son, who by example advocated resistance to tyrants 
that morning, are interred here; and here Pitcairn 
stood to watch the fight and direct the movements of 
his troops. No other yard, I think, can furnish such 
novel and distinctive epitaphs. There is one, for in- 
stance, which shows when white marble, emblematic 
of purity, first began to be used for memorials, the 



Concord Memories 19 

favorite material before that having been red sand- 
stone. Here is the inscription: 

"This stone is designed by its durabihty to per- 
petuate the memory, and by its color to signify the 
moral character, of Miss Abigail Dudley, who died 
January 4, 1812, aged 73." 

The epitaph to John Jack, an aged slave who died 
in 1773, is said to have been wTitten by the Rev. Daniel 
Bliss, a former minister of Concord: 

"God wills us free; man wills us slaves. I will as 
God wills; God's will be done. Here lies the body of 
John Jack, a native of Africa, who died March, 1773, 
aged about sixty years. Though born in a land of 
slavery, he was born free. Though he lived in a land 
of liberty, he lived a slave; till by his honest though 
stolen labors he acquired the source of slavery, which 
gave him his freedom. Though not long before 
death, the grand tyrant, gave him his final emancipa- 
tion, and put him on a footing with kings. Though a 
slave to vice, he practised those virtues without which 
kings are but slaves." 

It would be difficult to imagine a more charming 
resting-place than Sleepy-Hollow Cemetery, Concord's 
modern place of interment. Originally it was a natural 
park of liill and dale, shaded by forest trees, with a 
beautiful hollow of perhaps an acre in extent in the 
center. The grounds were laid out in 1855, art being 
content to adorn rather than change nature's plan. 



20 In Olde Massachusetts 

Most of Concord's famous dead are buried here. 
Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson He on the same 
ridge, and almost in adjoining plots. Ascending the 
Ridge Path from the west, Thoreau's grave is seen on 
the brow of the ridge, beneath a group of tall pines. 
The lot is unenclosed. A brown-stone slab marks the 
author's grave; the grave of his brother John, a youth 
of great promise, is close beside, and those of his father, 
mother, and two sisters share the lot. "May my life 
be not destitute of its Indian summer," Thoreau once 
prayed, and one learns from the stone that he was cut 
down before the summer had fairly come to him. 

Hawthorne's tomb is but a few steps away, covered 
with myrtle, and marked by two small stones, one at 
the foot and one at the head. There are but two 
other graves in the plot — those of his grandchildren, 
Francis H. and Gladys H. Lathrop. 

Emerson was laid on the same hill summit, a short 
distance south. 



CHAPTER IV 

AUTUMN DAYS IN QUINCY, 1883 

THE illustrated magazines in their wide search 
for topics seem to have missed Quincy — most 
prolific in subjects for both pen and pencil. The town 
is almost in sight of Boston, but seven miles away, with 
its granite quarries and manufactories, a town of to- 
day; but in its ancient churchyards and fine old man- 
sions hidden in the suburbs a wealth of interesting 
historical material lies buried. Take, for instance, the 
ancient mansion of the Quincys, a half-mile north of 
the village, on the old road opened to connect Plymouth 
Colony with Massachusetts Bay, one of the first high- 
ways of the nation. The house stands in a sunny 
hollow on the banks of a little brook that enters, a short 
distance beyond, an arm of the sea. Looking on it 
from the street between two fine old English lindens 
that grace the entrance and rows of elms beyond, one 
can but consider it one of the finest specimens of 
colonial domestic architecture extant — an impression 
which the interior, with its broad hall and gently 
ascending staircase, with carved balustrade, the wide 
but low-studded rooms, with their ancient furniture 



22 In Olde Massachusetts 

and relics, heightens rather than diminishes. Its occu- 
pant, when we visited it, Mr. Peter Butler, had made a 
study of the history of his dwelling, and placed the date 
of the erection of its earlier portion in 1635, on the 
authority of the venerable Josiah Quincy, President 
of Harvard College, who died in 1864, aged ninety-six, 
and of his son, the late Edmund Quincy of Dedham, 
an accomplished antiquary. Its builder was that 
Edmund Quincy who came to Boston in 1633 with 
John Cotton, and became the ancestor of the Quincys 
who later figured so prominently in the history of their 
country. He died in 1637, shortly after the allotment 
of a large tract of land in Braintree, now Quincy, had 
been made him. His son Edmund enlarged the origi- 
nal structure, and lived in it to a green old age, dying 
in January, 1698. He too was a notable citizen, repre- 
senting his town many times in the General Court, 
acting as magistrate, and serving as lieutenant-colonel 
of the Suffolk regiment. "A true New England man," 
said Judge Sewall of him, in his diary, "and one 
of our best friends"; while another writer pictures 
him as reproducing "the type of the English country 
gentleman in New England." 

It is in the famous diary of Judge Sewall, under date 
of 1712, that we find the first printed mention of the 
old house. He is noting a journey from Plymouth 
(where he had been holding court) to Boston, made in 
March of that year, and proceeds: "Rained hard 



Autumn Days in Quincy 23 

quickly after setting out; went by Mattakeese meeting- 
house, and forded over the North River. My Horse 
stumbled in the considerable body of water, but I made 
a shift, by God's Help, to set him, and he recovered 
and carried me out. Rained very hard and we went 
into a barn awhile. Baited at Bainsto's, dined at 
Cushing's, dried my coat and hat at both places. By 
that time got to Braintry; the day and I were in a 
manner spent, and I turned into Cousin Quinsey. . . . 
Lodged in the chamber next the Brooke." A pleasing 
glimpse of the "free-hearted hospitality" of that day 
this little extract affords; "the Brooke" is still there, 
and the chamber too, but little changed in general 
appearance since the distinguished guest left it. Judge 
Sewall's chamber was a corner room, with an outlook 
on both the turnpike and across the brook over the 
fields on the north. The adjoining room is still known 
as " Flynt's chamber," and the room beneath, connected 
with it by a narrow, winding stair, as " Flynt's study," 
from a former occupant, Henry Flynt, known to his 
contemporaries as "Tutor Flynt," from his having 
filled the office of tutor at Harvard College for fifty- 
five years. His father was the Rev. Henry Flynt of 
Dorchester, and his sister Dorothy married Judge 
Edmund Quincy, and became the ancestress of a long 
line of noble sons and daughters. 

There was a personality about Tutor Flynt that 
caused him to figure quite prominently in the diaries 



24 In Olde Massachusetts 

and notes of the men of his day. Judge Sewall relates 
an adventure that occurred to the tutor and himself 
while they were journeying from Cambridge to Ports- 
mouth, Sewall being at the time an undergraduate. 
"After dinner we passed through North Hampton to 
Greenland, and after coming to a small rise of the 
road, the hills on the north side of Piscataqua River 
appearing in view, a conversation passed between us 
respecting one of them, which he said was Frost Hill. 
I said it was Agamenticus, a large hill in York. We 
differed in opinion, and each of us adhered to his own 
idea of the subject. During this conversation, while 
we were descending gradually at a moderate pace, and 
at a small distance from Clark's tavern, the ground 
being a little sandy, but free from stones or obstruc- 
tions of any kind, the horse somehow stumbled in so 
sudden a manner, the boot of the chair being loose on 
Mr. Flynt's side, as to throw him headlong from the 
carriage into the road; and the stoppage being so sud- 
den, had not the boot been fastened on my side, I 
might probably have been thrown out likewise. The 
horse sprang up quickly, and with some difficulty I so 
guided the chair as to prevent the wheel passing over 
him, when I halted and jumped out, being apprehen- 
sive from the manner in which the old gentleman was 
thrown out it must have broken his neck. Several 
persons at the tavern noticed the occurrence, and im- 
mediately came to assist Mr. Flynt, and after raising 



Autumn Days in Quincy 25 

found him able to walk to the house; and after wash- 
ing his face and head with some water found the skin 
rubbed off his forehead in two or three places, to which 
a young lady . . . applied some court plaster. After 
which we had among us two or three single bowls of 
lemon punch made pretty sweet, with which we re- 
freshed ourselves, and became very cheerful. ... I 
was directed to pay for our bowl of punch and the oats 
our horse had received, after which we proceeded on 
towards Portsmouth. . . . The punch we had par- 
taken of was pretty well charged with good old spirit, 
and Mr. Flynt was very pleasant and sociable." 

This interesting character died in 1760 and was 
buried in the cemetery at Cambridge. 

Edmund Quincy, a Judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas, inhabited the old mansion in the days preceding 
the Revolution. His daughter Dorothy was the belle 
of Boston society in those days. John Hancock, at 
one time a resident of Quincy, wooed and won her in 
this very house. In its parlor we saw the quaint 
French paper placed on its walls in honor of her ap- 
proacliing nuptials. The marriage did not take place 
here, however, but in Fairfield, Conn., nearly two hun- 
dred miles distant. Hancock and Samuel Adams, as 
is well known, early became the special objects of 
British vengeance. They were in hiding in Lexington 
at the time Pitcairn marched against the town (Mrs. 
Hancock and Miss Quincy being also in the village), 



26 In Olde Massachusetts 

and escaped to a neighboring farm, where news was 
brought of the approach of the enemy, it being sup- 
posed then that their capture was one of the objects of 
the expedition. After the melee the four drove in a 
carriage down through Connecticut to the mansion of 
Thaddeus Burr, in Fairfield, a friend of Hancock's, 
where the ladies spent the summer, and where, in the 
autumn, on Hancock's return from presiding over the 
Continental Congress, the lovers were married. 

A few years after the Revolution the old mansion 
passed from the family, being purchased, with the 
twenty-five acres of lawn and field that now comprise 
the estate, by a gentleman named Allayne, who came 
to Boston from Barbadoes, where his family held large 
possessions. He was probably attracted to Quincy by 
the fame of the old mansion, and by the fact that here 
was an Episcopal church and rector — one of the very 
few places in New England at that period where that 
church had gained a foothold. Two other gentlemen 
resided here before Mr. Butler came into possession, 
so that five families in all had then occupied it. 

Among the furniture were two chairs, formerly be- 
longing to Governor Hutchinson, two which had 
held the portly form of Governor Bowdoin, and two 
brought from France by the Huguenots in 1686. There 
was also a gun, picked up in the retreat from Lexington, 
bearing the initials of the soldier who dropped it, either 
in the hurry of flight or at the command of death. The 






2 




o^ 




^^ 


4 


q 


:-i 


/-N 


■^ 


^"*' 


»^.'' 


•^ 


^:^ 





Autumn Days in Quincy 27 

paper on the parlor, which, as we have remarked, was 
placed there in honor of the approaching marriage of 
Dorothy Quincy to John Hancock, had some features 
of interest. It was covered with quaint designs and 
was laid on in squares, the papermaker of that day not 
having hit on the device of winding his product in rolls. 
There was also an interesting collection of Websteriana 
— the great statesman's wine-cooler, some of his silver- 
ware, two snuff-boxes, one of which was presented by 
the father of the late Sam Ward, a shot-gun, several 
portraits, and the cane presented by the citizens of 
Erie, Pa., in 1837. There was a pewter carving-dish 
that belonged to an earlier age, the wine-cooler of 
General Gage, and the punch-bowl of Governor Eustis, 
last used, it is said, when it was filled in honor of 
Lafayette. There was here, too, the secretary of 
Governor Hutchinson, and one of the original Franklin 
stoves. In the library, with its narrow, winding stair 
leading up to " Flynt's study," stood a tall, brass-faced 
clock of ancient design, an oddity in clocks, from 
having but a single hand, the hours being divided into 
sections of seven and a half minutes each. 

Several autograph letters of John and John Quincy 
Adams remind us that we are but a few steps from the 
old Adams family mansion, which might be seen across 
the meadows on the west but for the trees. From the 
Quincy mansion we paid it a visit, turning the corner, 
then up a side street, across the deep cut of the railway. 



28 In Olde Massachusetts 

just beyond which we reached it: a fine old double 
house, set in a pretty park, with a long piazza in front, 
two entrances and halls, and on the west a detached, 
vine-covered brick structure — the library. It had 
sheltered two Presidents and their families, and was 
for years the home of Charles Francis Adams. We 
were admitted to the parlor, as a special favor, and 
shown the fine portraits of John Adams and liis wife 
Abigail, by Stuart, and of John Quincy Adams, by 
Copley, and to the dining-room, where hung the por- 
traits of George II. and his Queen, by Savage. Then 
we went out along the piazza to the entrance on the 
west, and on the left entered the "Mahogany Room," 
the favorite apartment of the Presidents; so called 
because it is finished in panels of solid mahogany. 
The old mansion, we learned, was built seventy-five 
years before President John Adams bought it, by a 
famous West India merchant of Boston, who, having 
a large importation of mahogany in stock, utilized it 
in the rich and solid decoration of one room of his 
mansion. The library of the Presidents, where much 
of their literary work was done, was in this wing, but 
as rare and valuable books and manuscripts accumu- 
lated, the risk of retaining them in the main building 
was deemed too great, and some years ago the brick 
fire-proof structure which we have mentioned was 
erected by the late occupant for their safe keeping. 



CHAPTER V 

BROOK FARM IN 1881 

INTEREST in the bright young spirits that con- 
stituted the Brook Farm Phalanx drew me out one 
May day to the scene of their experiment. After a 
seven-mile ride by train we were set down at the pretty 
rural suburb of West Roxbury, somewhat noteworthy 
as being the first pastoral charge of Theodore Parker. 
The farm lies on the bank of the Charles River, about 
a mile north of the station, and is reached by a country 
road that goes straight forward for the first three 
quarters of a mile, then winds up and around a small 
hill, bends down into the valley of the Charles again, 
crosses a small brook by a rustic bridge, and then turns 
directly by the main buildings of the farm. One can 
but be charmed with its location. The larger part of 
it lies in the sunny intervale of a little brook that flows 
westward into the Charles, but the boundary line also 
includes a series of knolls and foothills that rise on the 
brook's northern border, and crowning these hills is a 
dense wood of cedar, hemlock, chestnut, and other 
forest trees. The Charles flows a few yards from its 
western boundary. In a little brown cottage, just 



30 In Olde Massachusetts 

across the way, lives George Bradford, an aged Eng- 
Hshman, who was once in charge of the farm, and who 
readily consented to act as our guide. The present 
estate is far from being the Blithedale of Hawthorne or 
the Brook Farm of Ripley and his associates. Prob- 
ably there is not another farm in New England that 
has undergone such mutations as this in the brief 
period of thirty years. The Phalanx had pretty fully 
dispersed in the summer of 1848. For some time after 
their departure the estate was used by the city of Rox- 
bury for a poor-farm. Then it was purchased by 
James Freeman Clarke, with the design, it was said, 
of building houses upon it and making it a suburb of 
the city. This design, however, if entertained, was 
never carried out. When the civil war broke out the 
farm became a camp for the volunteer soldiers of 
Massachusetts, and the tramp of armed men was heard 
in the former abode of dreamers. Later it was pur- 
chased by a Mr. Burckhardt, its present owner, for 
the site and endowment of an orphan asylum. In the 
course of these mutations all the buildings erected by 
the Phalanx, except one, have disappeared, and the 
whole aspect of the farm has been changed. 

We entered the grounds by the main, or east entrance. 
From the gate a carriage way winds west, in and out 
among the knolls, having the brook and the intervale 
on the south. Just here, on a pretty green plateau, 
sheltered by an old cottonwood tree, stood the main 



Brook Farm in 1881 31 

building, known to all familiar with the literature of 
the farm as the "Beehive." It was an old two-story 
and rustic structure of wood, with nothing particularly 
noticeable about its outward appearance. In 1849, 
when the town Committee on the Poor-Farm visited it, 
it contained "on the first floor two parlors, one large 
dining-room, 45 x 14, with closets, a kitchen with a 
Stimpson range, calculated for from sixty to eighty 
persons, and containing three large boilers, a wash- 
room, press-room, store-room, and closets; and on the 
second floor, two large chambers with fireplaces, two 
bedrooms, and thirteen sleeping-rooms, with several 
closets." The "hive" was destroyed by fire long ago, 
and its site is now occupied by Mr. Burckhardt's orphan 
asylum. Proceeding west, along the driveway, the 
sites of the former communal buildings were marked by 
fire-blackened ruins, and we noticed with what an eye 
to the picturesque they had been selected. First, a few 
yards west of the house was the barn, a large building, 
seventy feet by forty, with an addition for grain-rooms. 
Directly above it, on the crest of the hill, stood the 
Phalanstery, or Pilgrim House, whose loss by fire 
almost before it was completed so seriously crippled 
the community. The "Eyry," also quite prominent 
in the literature of the farm, stood still further north, 
almost in the shadow of the pine forest. Our guide 
informed us in his gossipy way that when he first came 
here, in 1849, Charles A. Dana and his wife were its 



32 In Olde Massachusetts 

occupants. Most interesting of all to us was Margaret 
Fuller's cottage, still standing on the crest of a little 
hill, in the midst of a copse of cedars. It is cruciform 
in shape, covered with wide wooden clapboards, and 
is now the dwelling of the superintendent of the estate 
and his family. Our guide remarked sotto voce that 
Miss Fuller received $1,600 for it in the distribution of 
the property. Just beneath the cottage windows, in a 
grassy little hollow sheltered on every side by woods 
and hills, were the flower garden and hothouse of the 
association. Bradford expatiated largely on the beauty 
and bloom of this garden in its palmy days, and said 
that until within a year or two the country people were 
in the habit of resorting hither for slips of the Provence 
roses that still lived and flourished within its borders. 
It is only a patch of weed-covered earth now. A few 
yards west, in the deep gloom of the hemlocks, is a little 
graveyard where several members of the community 
found a last resting-place. 

On the summit of a little knoll at the farthest verge 
of the farm, we sat down and tried to realize that this 
was the locality made classic by the presence of Zenobia, 
Hollingsworth, and Priscilla; that here the bright 
young prophets of a new social era sawed and planed 
in the workshops, toiled and moiled in the cornfields, 
that a new idea might have birth and a chance for its 
life; but the fire-blackened ruins and bare brown hill- 
sides are too intensely practical for any play of feeling 



Brook Farm in 1881 33 

or show of sentiment. It is a little singular that none 
of the ready writers engaged in the enterprise has ever 
given the world an authentic account of the movement 
in its inception and results. Ripley and Dana, the two 
leading spirits, do not even give the name a place in 
their great cyclopedia. Hawthorne, it will be re- 
membered, refers to this omission in the preface to his 
"Blithedale Romance," and gives a playful challenge 
to some of his literary confreres there to step forward 
and fill up the gap. He himself gives us glimpses in 
tliis book of the Ufe at the farm, but one has a suspicion 
that they are more fictitious than real. The leaders 
have always evinced a great reluctance to refer to the 
matter in any way, seemingly regarding it as a freak 
of youthful folly of which the least said the better. The 
younger members, however — those who grew up from 
boyhood to manhood on the farm, of whom there are 
several in this city — show no such reluctance, and 
have very interesting reminiscences of the experiment 
to relate. One of these gentlemen, a middle-aged 
business man, recently favored me with some recollec- 
tions, of which I give a synopsis. 

"The Brook Farm experiment," he began, "was 
neither socialistic nor communistic, but it was utilita- 
rian and humanitarian. A Mutual Aid Society would 
be a very appropriate name for it. It was a joint-stock 
corporation, regularly incorporated, known legally as 
the Brook Farm Phalanx. Some of its members con- 



34 In Olde Massachusetts 

tributed money, some labor of hand or brain; but these 
last were required to toil only a certain number of 
hours each day, and were on a social equality with the 
capitalists. All had an opportunity for study and social 
improvement afforded them. There was a division of 
labor among us. Some taught in the schools, some 
wrought in the workshops, some on the farm. The 
school of which Mr. and Mrs. Ripley were the directors 
was the most successful department. It gained quite 
a wide reputation, and numbered among its pupils 
young men from Manila, Havana, Florida, and Cam- 
bridge. There were classes in Greek, German, Italian, 
mental and moral philosophy, as well as a b c classes 
for the little children. Then we published a weekly 
newspaper called the Harbinger, which attained a 
higher grade, I think, than any American journal which 
had preceded it. Ripley, Dana, and Knight were the 
working editors, and Channing, Parker, Otis, Clapp, 
Cranch, Curtis, Duganne, Godwin, Greeley, Higgin- 
son, Lowell, Story, and Whittier contributors. It was 
the legitimate successor of three other publications of 
like character — the Dial, the Present, and the Phalanx 
— and after the failure of the association was published 
for a time at New York, but finally died of inanition. 
We paid great attention to social life and development 
at Brook Farm. The finest minds and most genial 
hearts were attracted to it. Beautiful and cultured 
women added their gracious presence, too, and the long 



Brook Farm in 1881 35 

winter evenings spent around the glowing fireside of 
the old farmhouse were social symposia of the highest 
order. We read, we sang, we discussed art, literature, 
social questions, the topics of the day, and wove glow- 
ing visions of the coming of the new order which should 
cast out the old. Ripley was the prince among us both 
in intellect and heart, and was the inspiration of the 
whole movement. Dana was the business manager, 
the only man of affairs among us. Dwight was the 
teacher and preacher. Emerson and Parker, the latter 
then preaching at Roxbury, often looked in on us with 
words of sympathy and advice. I see you are curious 
to know why our undertaking failed. Not from any 
inherent weakness in the principle we younger men 
have always maintained, but from extraneous causes. 
Our situation was ill-judged. We were seven miles 
from Boston, and in the absence of railroads our sup- 
plies, coal for the engine and products of farm and 
workshops, had to be hauled that distance in wagons. 
Then we were not organized systematically and suffered 
from inexperience, besides meeting with sad losses by 
fire. I am quite sure in the hands of practical men the 
experiment could be tried with a fair measure of suc- 
cess." 



CHAPTER VI 

A VISIT TO PLYMOUTH, 1882 

PLYMOUTH derives little dignity from its posi- 
-■■ tion, being planted on a narrow plateau that lies 
behind the sea, and a range of steep high bluffs that 
form quite a feature of the coast. Its chief character- 
istics are pretty white country houses embowered in 
trees. There are a few manufactories, but they are in 
the outskirts, and give little hint of their presence. 
Of commerce it has very Httle, Boston having long ago 
absorbed what might have fallen to its share, and it 
seems to have accepted quite contentedly its position 
as conservator of things rare and ancient. All visitors 
to Plymouth are perforce pilgrims, and it is fortunate 
that its varied objects of interest — Forefathers' Rock, 
Pilgrim Hall, Burial Hill, and the National Monument 
— are within such easy distance of one another. 

As one goes down Court Street from the railway 
station under fine old elms, one sees on the left an 
ornate building with a Doric portico and much the 
appearance of a Grecian temple standing somewhat 
back from the village street. It is Pilgrim Hall, erected 
by the Pilgrim Society in 1824, and devoted to the 



A Visit to Plymouth 37 

preservation of relics of the forefathers. It also par- 
takes of the character of a general museum. In its 
great hall one finds many mementoes of a historic past. 
There are paintings and portraits on the walls, and in 
cases arranged about the room are many relics of the 
fathers and of the tribes of the Old Colony. Of the 
paintings, the most noteworthy is Parker's copy of 
Weir's great picture of the embarkation in the rotunda 
of the Capitol at Washington. Sargent's large paint- 
ing of the landing, wliich covers nearly the whole of 
the east wall, is barely within the range of criticism, 
since it was a gift from the artist. Among the portraits, 
the most noteworthy is that of Edward Winslow, third 
Governor of the colony, and one of the immortal forty- 
one who signed the compact on the Mayflower. It is 
a copy, the original being in the possession of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, and the only por- 
trait, it is said, of a passenger on the Mayflower in 
existence. Near the Governor's portrait is a noble 
face — that of his son Josiah, the first native-born 
Governor of the colony; the beautiful Madonna-like 
face beside it is that of his wife Penelope. A stern, 
military figure in uniform is their grandson, the Major- 
General John Winslow of the British Army to whom 
was entrusted the removal of the French Acadians 
from their homes. All of these worthies except Gov- 
ernor Edward lie buried in the old churchyard at 
Marshfield, near the grave of Daniel Webster. A 



38 In Olde Massachusetts 

striking portrait is that of John Alden, grandson of 
John Alden and Priscilla. The face of Jonathan 
Trumbull, the famous war Governor of Connecticut, 
charms one by its air of stern uprightness. His son 
John Trumbull, the historical painter, is also portrayed 
here, and there is a copy of an original portrait of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, painted by a London artist, which 
was formerly the property of President JeflFerson. 

The glass cases ranged about the room attract the 
greater number of visitors. They contain relics of the 
forefathers and mothers far too precious to be exposed 
to the dust or the rapacity of the curiosity-seeker. 
Those relating to Miles Standish are exceedingly in- 
teresting. There are several of these — Holland brick 
from the burned ruins of his house in Duxbury, his 
great pewter platter with a rim at least four inches wide 
and a pit of proportionate depth, and his sword, the 
trenchant blade that again and again saved the little 
colony from destruction. There are traditions that it 
was made of meteoric stone by the Persian Magi, and 
that it possessed talismanic virtues. It is known to 
be of Persian manufacture, and was no doubt won from 
some Spanish hidalgo by the Captain in his wars in 
the low countries. On the blade is engraved the sun 
and the moon. On the face is an Arabic inscription 
to this effect: "With peace God ruled his slaves, and 
with judgment of his arm he gave trouble to the valiant 
of the mighty." On the reverse of the blade are two 



A Visit to Plymouth 39 

other inscriptions, one obscure, the other meaning, 
"In God is all might." We have in this case, too, a 
sampler wrought by the daughter of Miles Standish, a 
few years perhaps before her death. Into the cloth, 
below the intricate maze of needlework, is stitched this 
pious stanza: 

"Lorea Standish is my name; 
Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will; 
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill 
As may conduce to virtue void of shame; 
And I will give the glory to Thy name." 

The Captain's dinner-pot has been relegated to the 
floor. It is a huge affair, with a jointed bail and 
capacious stomach, rather insecurely mounted on three 
rudimentary legs. In one corner, under the great 
Sargent picture, is the arm-chair of Elder Brewster, 
made of toughest oak, and capacious enough for the 
person of Von Twiller himself. The good elder must 
have purchased it at Leyden or Delfthaven, for it never 
could have been fashioned for an Englishman. In the 
opposite corner is a model of that famous vessel, the 
Mayflower. Near it is the cradle in which Peregrine 
White, the first baby born to the colonists, was rocked. 
There is the halberd of John Alden — a murderous 
weapon, with a long oaken staff — his Bible, a deed 
acknowledged before him in 1653, an original letter 
from King Philip, the first Plymouth patent, dated 
1621, the oldest State paper in the United States, and 



40 In Olde Massachusetts 

scores of other reHcs intimately connected with the 
early settlers. One of the most interesting bits of the 
collection escapes the attention of the ordinary visitor. 
It may be found in one of the cases on the north side, 
and is the original copy of Bryant's tribute to the 
Pilgrims — "The Twenty-second of December." A 
companion piece is the first draft of Mrs. Hemans' well- 
known hymn to the Pilgrims. An autograph poem 
on the Pilgrim Fathers by Ebenezer Elliot, the corn-law 
rhymer, completes the collection, which was given to 
the Pilgrim Society in 1880 by James T. Fields. 

Passing out of the historic building, we see near the 
right-hand corner an iron fence, elliptical in form, en- 
closing a chastely cut granite pillar, erected to the 
memory of the signers of the famous compact. Their 
names inscribed on scrolls attached to the railing en- 
circle the stone. Going south from Pilgrim Hall a 
few blocks, one comes to a large and handsome build- 
ing, situated so far back from the street that there is 
room for a pretty park between. This is the County 
Court-house, erected in 1820 and remodeled in 18.57. 
There are two entrances, one on the north, the other 
on the south. If one enters on the south and passes 
through a long corridor to the further end, he will have 
on his left the ofiice of the Register of Deeds. In this 
room, under the care of Mr. William S. Danforth, 
Secretary of the Pilgrim Society, is preserved one of the 
oldest, most complete and extensive collections of legal 



A Visit to Plymouth 41 

and State papers in the land. They comprise the 
earliest records of Plymouth Colony, its laws, the allot- 
ment of lands, the original plan of the town, the records 
of the first church, the deeds, mortgages, and wills of 
the men famous in history. One easily fixes upon the 
original patent of the colony granted by the Earl of 
Warwick in 1629 as the most interesting. It is kept 
in the original box in which it came from England, and 
still retains the great wax seal which gave it validity. 
Of almost equal interest is the first order for trial by 
jury, in the quaint handwriting of Governor Bradford. 
Here, too, is the will of Standish, with his autograph 
attached, the order for the first customs law, the order 
dividing the cattle into lots, one cow being divided into 
thirteen lots, that is, her milk was distributed among 
thirteen families. 

The chief object for all pilgrims is, of course. Fore- 
fathers' Rock. To reach it from the Court-house, one 
follows the main street a short distance south to Shirley 
Square. From this point a narrow side-street, the 
original Leyden Street of the Pilgrims, leads down to 
the docks and shipping. Here, near the water's edge, 
amid the din and stir of trafiic, one finds the historic 
stone. Probably the first feeling of all visitors is one of 
disappointment. There is no stormy and rock-bound 
coast, as one has been led to expect, but a low, sandy 
shore, a natural landing-place. The rock itself is not 
a part of some huge cliff, but a boulder brought down 



42 In Olde Massachusetts 

by the glaciers and deposited here to form the stepping- 
stone of a new empire. A granite canopy, designed by 
Billings and erected by the Pilgrim Society, covers it, 
and adds still more to the incongruity of its surround- 
ings. Cole's Hill, a little bluff overtopping the rock, is 
also vastly changed since Master Coppin used it as a 
landmark in guiding the Pilgrim shallop to land. This 
hill was the first burial-ground of the Pilgrims, it will 
be remembered, nearly half the whole ship's company 
having been laid here ere the jBrst year had passed, and 
their graves sown over with wheat, that the Indians 
might not discover the weakness of the colony. The 
hill now is turfed, surrounded by an iron railing, and 
granite steps lead down its side to the rock. We found 
Burial Hill, overlooking the central part of the village, 
exceedingly interesting. Here stood the earliest church, 
and here still rests the dust of the forefathers. 

The churchyard is quite populous; there are more 
inhabitants here than in the village below. The tomb- 
stones are in a great variety of form and material, 
though the dark slate of England and the marble and 
granite of our own country predominate. The earlier 
headstones were brought from England before there 
was any stonecutter in the colony, and bear the winged 
cherub above the inscription, with much curious 
tracery on the sides. The oldest stone now standing is 
one erected to the memory of Edward Gray, a merchant 
who died in 168 L A stone to William Crowe, near the 



A Visit to Plymouth 43 

head of the path, bears date 1683-4. There is one to 
Thomas Clark, said to have been mate of the May- 
flower, erected in 1697; one to Mrs. Hannah Clark, 
1687; one to John Cotton, 1699; these being all the 
original stones of the seventeenth century that remain. 
Too many of those that rest here sleep in obscurity. 
Not any of the one hundred and two souls of the 
Mayflower have their graves surely designated by the 
customary hie jacet, nor any of those who followed 
in the ship Fortune in 1621, save one — Thomas Cush- 
man; and of those who came in the Ann and Little 
James, in 1623, only one — Thomas Clark — is re- 
membered by any form of memorial. Tradition, how- 
ever, has pointed out the places of sepulture of some 
of them, and on these spots their descendants have 
erected suitable monuments. Two attract the eye at 
once by their stateliness — the shaft in memory of 
William Bradford, the first Governor of Plymouth 
Colony and its faithful chronicler, and that erected by 
filial piety to the memory of Elder Robert. 

The view from the summit of the hill is beautiful in 
the extreme. The village lies at your feet; before you 
the circle of Plymouth Bay rounds north and south, its 
northern headland being Captain's Hill, with the Stan- 
dish monument crowning its peak, and its southern 
the bold bluffs of Manomet. It was interesting to 
look into the modern town and compare it with De 
Rasiere's description of 1627: 



44 In Olde Massachusetts 

"The houses," he observes, "are constructed of hewn 
planks with gardens also enclosed behind and at the 
sides, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged 
in very good order with a stockade against a sudden 
attack. At the ends of the street there are three 
wooden gates. In the center, on a cross street, stands 
the Governor's house, before which is a square en- 
closure, upon which four pateros are mounted so as to 
flank along the street. . . . Upon the hill they have a 
large square house with a flat roof. . . . The lower 
part they use for their church, where they preach on 
Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by 
beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front 
of the Captain's door; they have their cloaks on and 
place themselves in order there abreast, and are led 
by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes 
the Governor in a long robe, beside on the right hand 
comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left 
hand the Captain with his side arms and cloak on and 
with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in 
good order, and each gets his arms down near him. 
Thus they are constantly on their guard night and 
day." 

I have before spoken of the range of hills that en- 
circles the village. On the highest of these the Pilgrim 
Society, with the aid of contributions from the nation 
at large, has erected a monument to the memory of the 
Forefathers. There is so much of the crude and incon- 



A Visit to Plymouth 45 

gruous in American sculpture that it is a pleasure to be 
able to commend this memorial. It is partly at least 
in accord with the genius of the place, and fitly presents 
the character and work of the men it is intended to 
commemorate. The material is Maine granite. The 
general design is that of an octagon pedestal forty-five 
feet high, on wliich stands a colossal statue of Faith. 
Four subordinate figures on buttresses projecting from 
the pedestal represent Morality, Education, Law, and 
Liberty. Beneath these in alto-relief are represented 
the departure, the signing of the compact, the landing, 
and the first treaty with the Indians. There are four 
panels on the four faces of the main pedestal, one on 
the front having the inscription of the monument, and 
those on the right and left the names of the passengers 
of the Mayflower. The fourth panel awaits an inscrip- 
tion. The pedestal was placed in position in the 
summer of 1876. The statue of Faith is the gift of 
Oliver Ames, a native of Plymouth, and was put in 
place in 1877. But one of the smaller statues — that 
of Morality — is now in position. It was the gift of 
the State of Massachusetts. The alto-relief beneath 
it was the contribution of Connecticut. The statue of 
Education is completed, with its companion alto-relief, 
both being the gift of Mr. Rowland Mather, of Hart- 
ford, Conn. The two other statues, Law and Liberty, 
are yet unprovided for, and await the contributions of 
those who honor the memory of the Pilgrims. 



CHAPTER VII 

A DAY AT GREEN HARBOR, 1882 

TRAVELING Bostonward from historic Ply- 
mouth by the Old Colony Line, we were set 
down in twenty minutes at Webster Place, the nearest 
railway-point to Green Harbor, the former home of 
Daniel Webster. The Place was only a flag-station, 
and its sole building a shed that served as a waiting- 
room for passengers. In answer to our inquiry for the 
Webster farm, the boy who acted as station-master 
pointed out a broad, dusty highway leading eastward 
through the wood, and told us we were to go up that a 
mile until it forked by a schoolhouse, and that then 
half a mile by the left fork would bring us to the farm. 
The country is level here, and as we emerged from the 
forest upon cultivated fields we saw across them the 
blue line of the ocean. We easily found the fork in 
the road, and the schoolhouse, and were shown, on 
the corner directly opposite, the quaint, mossy, low- 
roofed house that once sheltered Governor Josiah 
Winslow of the Plymouth Colony. Leaving this relic, 
we followed a beautiful country road through the farms 
between several neatly painted farmhouses, and past 



A Day at Green Harbor 47 

the pretty country-seat of Adelaide Phillips, the singer, 
to the smoothly laid walls and well-kept fields of the 
Webster estate. The old family mansion, burned in 
1878, stood some distance back from the street, on a 
little knoll, in the midst of a park of thirty acres, well 
shaded by forest trees. It was a long, low, rambling 
structure of the colonial era, and had achieved a his- 
tory before Webster bought it, having been occupied 
by the British troops in the Revolution, at which time 
it was the scene of some rather tragic incidents. But 
a fatality attends American historic houses, and this 
structure, dear to all Americans from Webster's con- 
nection with it, was burned to the ground on the morn- 
ing of the 14th of February, 1878, and with it nearly all 
the objects of interest and art that had been gathered 
by its former owner. The mistress of the estate, Mrs. 
Fletcher Webster, rebuilt, on the former site, but with 
no attempt to reproduce the farmhouse of her ances- 
tor's day. Her home was not open to visitors, as was 
the old dwelling, but on our presenting ourselves at the 
door we were kindly invited in, and a member of the 
household was deputed to introduce us to everything 
of public interest which it contained. A few relics 
intimately connected with the great statesman were 
saved from the flames that destroyed his house. His 
study-table of mahogany, veneered, and covered with 
green baize worn and ink stained, occupied a promi- 
nent position in the entrance hall. Near it was his 



48 In Olde Massachusetts 

library chair, a huge affair, with leather-covered arms 
and seat and fitted with a foot-rest and bookholder. 
Here, too, were the fire-screen and andirons from the 
fireplace of his study. Stuart's portrait of Mr. Webster 
occupied a good position over the mantel; and Ames's 
portrait of him, as he appeared in farm-costume, faced 
it on the opposite wall. Above the latter was the 
great white wool hat that always protected his head 
while fishing or walking about the farm, and with it 
his favorite walking-stick. The walls of the wide 
stairway and of the hall above were adorned with por- 
traits of Grace Fletcher, Mr. Webster's first wife, and 
of his friend Judge Story, and with busts of his last 
wife, Caroline Le Roy, and of his daughter Julia. In 
the parlor was a rosewood table from the old house, 
covered with the china in daily use by the family dur- 
ing his lifetime. This table was of rosewood, marble- 
topped and brass-bound. Another interesting object 
here was a table presented by the mechanics of Buffalo, 
in 1855, "in testimony of their respect for his distin- 
guished services in defence of a protective tariff and of 
our national union." The material was of black wal- 
nut, the first ever used in furniture-making. A very 
pretty memento was a case of Brazilian beetles and 
butterflies presented to him by the Brazilian govern- 
ment. A beautifully embossed leather armchair, with 
gilded frame and top, the gift of Victor Emmanuel, in 
the music room, and an album containing signatures 







^ "2 



a 



A Day at Green Harbor 49 

of Jefferson, Everett, and other famous men, were the 
only other mementoes of note spared by the flames. 
Most of these reUcs, it was said, Mrs. Webster would 
present to the Webster Historical Society. 

Out in the park we were shown two elms standing 
near together, their branches interlocked, which were 
planted by Mr. Webster himself, one at the birth of 
his son Edwin, the other at the birth of his daughter 
Julia, and which he called brother and sister. Another 
interesting object here was the great elm that sheltered 
the old house, half of it scorched by fire, the other green 
and vigorous. 

Green Harbor River, or rather Inlet, comes up to 
the boundaries of the park in the rear of the house, 
and at high tide is navigable for small boats to the 
ocean, some two miles distant. Beyond this, over bare, 
brown uplands, one sees the white tombstones of a 
country graveyard. The yard is perhaps a quarter 
of a mile from the house, and the same distance from 
the highway, access to it being had by a rude road 
winding through the fields. It is one of the district 
cemeteries so common to New England, and holds the 
dust of perhaps a score of the families of the neighbor- 
hood, obscure and titled, — for what was our surprise, 
in strolling among the tombs, to find, on a great table 
of brown-stone supported by four pillars, inscriptions 
to the memory of some of the first magistrates of the 
Plymouth Colony! The yard was enclosed on three 



50 In Olde Massachusetts 

sides by a mossy stone wall, and on the fourth by a 
modern iron fence. There were no trimly kept walks 
there; low stunted cedars, sumach, wild rose, and other 
bushes grew luxuriantly, and it had in general a neg- 
lected air. The Webster lot was in the southwest cor- 
ner of the yard, near the entrance, and was enclosed 
by a heavy iron fence. The tomb of the statesman is 
a great mound of earth surmounted by a marble slab, 
at the north end of the lot. The stone has this inscrip- 
tion: "Daniel Webster, born January 18, 1782; died 
October 24, 1852. 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine 
unbelief,' " and beneath this, " Philosophical argument, 
especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe 
compared with the apparent insignificance of the globe, 
has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith which 
is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured 
me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine 
reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely 
human production. This belief enters into the very 
depths of my consciousness. The whole history of 
man proves it. Daniel Webster." 

The plot is well filled. Grace Fletcher the first wife, 
and Julia the favorite daughter, are buried at the left 
of the husband and father. At their feet are three 
daughters of Fletcher and Caroline Webster. Near 
his father's right rests Major Edward Webster, who 
died of disease at San Angelo in Mexico, in Taylor's 
campaign of 1848. The most interesting grave, how- 



A Day at Green Harbor 51 

ever, next to the Senator's, is that of Colonel Fletcher 
Webster, the gallant soldier who fell at the head of his 
regiment in the war of the rebellion. The inscription 
on his stone is so eloquent that it should be given in 
full; it reads: 

" Colonel Fletcher Webster, 12th Massachusetts Vol- 
unteers, son of Daniel and Grace Fletcher Webster; 
born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 25th July, 1813; 
fell at the head of his regiment on the old battle-field 
of Bull Run, Virginia, August 30, 1862. 

" ' And if I am too old myself, I hope there are those 
connected with me who are young and willing to de- 
fend their country, to the last drop of their own blood.' 

"Erected by ofiicers of the 12th regiment Massa- 
chusetts Infantry to the memory of their beloved 
colonel." 

Webster was fond of this old yard, and chose it 
above all others for his last resting-place. I could not 
but be struck with the unique — almost weird — view 
presented from its summit. 

To the eastward are marshes and the sea, the latter 
flecked with sails. On the south is a pleasant country 
of farms, with a hamlet of white cottages set in its 
midst. On the west one sees a stretch of bare, undulat- 
ing down, bounded by a dense forest. Northwest 
across the fields is seen Marshfield village and spire, 
and on the north lies a wild country of pastures and 
downs. The spot seemed designed for meditation. 



52 In Olde Massachusetts 

and in fancy we pictured the bent figure of the great 
commoner among the tombs, communing with his 
dead, or drawing inspiration from the scene about him. 

Leaving the Webster plot and going for a Httle ramble 
among the other graves, we made a discovery that ought 
to commend us to the Society of American Antiquaries, 
— that, namely, of the Winslow tomb. The grave is 
marked by a great table of brown stone supported by 
four stone pillars. The Winslow arms, in slate, are 
set into the stone, and beneath are the inscriptions. 
Several of the famous persons of the name whose por- 
traits one sees in Pilgrim Hall are here commemorated: 
Governor Josiah Winslow, the first native-born Gov- 
ernor of Plymouth Colony, who died in 1680; his wife 
Penelope; the Honorable John Winslow, a major- 
general in the British army, and the oflScer who re- 
moved the French Acadians from their country; the 
Honorable Isaac Winslow, Esq.; with later and less 
distinguished members of the family. 

On our way back to the station we called on Porter 
Wright, formerly overseer of the Webster farm, and 
almost the only person then living who was on intimate 
terms with Mr. Webster. He managed the farm for 
some twelve or fifteen years preceding the latter's 
death, and readily consented to give us some details 
of his stewardship, as well as recollections of his em- 
ployer. He first saw Mr. Webster on the occasion of 
the latter's second visit to Marshfield, and was at once 



A Day at Green Harbor 53 

struck with his appearance. "He would have been a 
marked man, sir, in any company. He had a power- 
ful look. I never saw a man who had such a look. 
He had an eye that would look through you. His 
first purchase here was the homestead, comprising 
some one hundred and fifty acres ; but he had a passion 
for land, and kept adding farm to farm until he had 
an estate of nearly eighteen hundred acres. The farm 
extended north and south from the homestead, and to 
tide-water on the east. When I became his overseer 
I used to see him daily when he was home, which was 
as often as he could get away from public duties. He 
loved to walk about the farm in his plain clothes, with 
a great white wool hat on his head, and oversee the 
men. He usually gave me my directions for the day 
in the morning. We spent the latter part of the sum- 
mer making plans for the next season's work; and 
when he was in Washington I had to write him nearly 
every day how things were at the farm; and I received 
instructions from him as often. He cared little for 
horses, but had a passion for a good ox-team. We 
had several on the farm, the finest in the county, and 
I have known him on his return from Washington pay 
them a visit before entering the house. At home he 
was an early riser, generally completing his writing for 
the day before other members of the family were up. 
He breakfasted with the family at eight, unless going 
on a fishing excursion, when he took breakfast alone at 



54 In Olde Massachusetts 

five. Fishina: was his favorite amusement. He had 
quite a fleet of sail-boats and row-boats, and fished 
along the coast from the Gurnet to Scituate Light. He 
caught cod mostly, but took also haddock and perch. 
When company was present, he invited them to go 
with him; but if they were averse he generally fitted 
them out with some other amusement and went his 
way alone. He entertained much company, — gov- 
ernors, statesmen, and the like, — but was averse to 
giving balls or parties or making any display. He 
attended church at Marshfield regularly, sometimes 
going with the family in the carriage, and sometimes 
on horseback alone. He often spoke to me about 
retiring from public life and spending his days quietly 
on the farm; but that time, as you know, never came. 
He died in 1852, and the farm was divided to the heirs 
— his son Fletcher, and the children of his daughter 
JuUa." 



CHAPTER VIII 

SALEM 

\ LMOST in sight of Boston, the supplanter near 
-^ ^ the point where Cape Ann breaks away from 
the mainland, is Salem, still nautical in tone and tra- 
dition, although scores of years have passed since she 
lost her hold on the commerce of the East. Her muni- 
cipal seal bears the motto, "To the furthest port of 
the rich East"; old shipmasters who once carried her 
flag to the furthest seas congregate in the municipal 
offices to recount their conquests, and in the sunny 
nooks of Derby Street one comes on little knots of 
grizzled tars, their humble allies in adventure. In my 
first stroll through this thoroughfare I met an aged 
negro hobbling along, as briny and tarry as though 
steeped for years in those concomitants of a seafaring 
life. To my query as to the name of the street he re- 
plied promptly, "Darby Street, sah; run along heah, 
fore and aft," indicating the water-front with his fore- 
finger. This Derby Street is a marvelously suggestive 
thoroughfare to the dreamer. Visions of it at its best 
still haunt it. Ghostly shadows of stately East India- 
men, Canton tea ships, and African treasure ships. 



56 In Olde Massachusetts 

fall athwart it. Faint odors of the cassia, aloes, gums, 
and sandalwood of other days linger about it, and 
shadowy heaps of precious merchandise burden the 
wharves. The silent warehouses are again open, and 
porters busy within under the eye of precise clerks and 
supercargoes with pens over their ears and ink blotches 
on their long linen coats. In the counting-rooms the 
portly merchants greet buyers from all countries; the 
sail-makers are busy in their lofts; in long low buildings 
spinners with strands of hemp tread the rope- walk; the 
ship chandlers' shops are thronged; the street is filled 
with men of all nations. 

But, dreaming aside, there is something phenomenal 
in the early growth of Salem's commerce. Her achieve- 
ments were largely due to the genius of her own citizens, 
and they worked, it is well to note, with inherited 
tendencies. Salem was founded for a trading-post by 
a company of English merchants, whose agents selected 
it because of its commercial advantages. They began 
a trade with it at once, several cargoes of "staves, 
sarsaparilla, sumach, fish, and beaver skins," being 
exported as early as 1630. By 1643, while Plymouth 
still remained a primitive hamlet, her merchants had 
a flourishing trade with the West Indies, Barbadoes, 
and the Leeward Islands. 

Previous to the Revolution the trade of Salem was 
chiefly with the colonies, the West Indies, and the 
principal European ports. The vessels had an estab- 



Salem 57 

lished routine, loading at Salem with fish, lumber, and 
provisions, clearing for some port in the West Indies, 
and thence running through the islands until they 
found a satisfactory market. In return they loaded 
with sugar, molasses, cotton, and rum, or ran across to 
the Carolinas for rice and naval stores. From this traflBc 
assorted cargoes were made up for the European ports, 
and wine, salt, and manufactured products brought 
back in return. Colonial commerce was very hazardous, 
assaults of pirates, buccaneers, and French privateers 
being added to the risks of the sea. It was profitable, 
however. A writer of 1664 speaks of Salem's "rich 
merchants " and of her solid, many-gabled mansions. 

The Revolution, of course, stopped all commerce; 
but with the return of peace in 1783 dawned the golden 
age of the port. In twenty-four years she had a fleet 
of 252 vessels in commission, and her merchants were 
in commercial relations with India, China, Batavia, 
the Isle of France, Mozambique, Russia, and all the 
nearer commercial countries. 

The credit of opening India, China, and, indeed, the 
entire East to American commerce, is due to Elias H. 
Derby, a Salem merchant, born in the port in 1739. 
This gentleman possessed a courage and enterprise 
that no obstacles could daunt, and determined to enter 
the rich field then monopolized by the English and 
Dutch East India Companies. Accordingly in 1784 
he despatched the ship Grand Turk, under Capt. 



58 In Olde Massachusetts 

Jonathan Ingersoll, to the Cape of Good Hope on a 
mercantile reconnoissance, to discover the needs and 
capacity of the Eastern market. She returned in less 
than a year with the information sought, was quickly 
reloaded, and on the 28th of November, 1785, cleared 
for the Isle of France, with instructions to proceed 
thence to Canton, via Batavia. The ship was laden 
with native products — fish, flour, provisions, tobacco, 
spirits — and made a successful voyage, returning in 
June, 1787, with a cargo of teas, silks, and nankeens, 
the first vessel from New England, if not from America, 
to enter into competition with the incorporated com- 
panies of the Old World. Her success seems to have 
electrified the merchants of Salem, Boston, and New 
York, and an eager rivalry for the trade of the Orient 
ensued, with the result that when Mr. Derby's ship 
Astria entered Canton two years later she found fifteen 
American vessels there taking in cargo, four of them 
belonging to our merchant, however, who had not been 
slow in improving his advantages as pioneer. This 
was not the only pioneer work that he did. His bark 
Light Horse in 1784 first opened American trade with 
Russia. In 1788 his ship Atlantic first displayed the 
American flag at Surat, Calcutta, and Bombay. An- 
other did the same in Siam; a third was the first to open 
trade with Mocha. In 1790, it is said, his vessels 
brought into Salem 728,871 pounds of tea, these ven- 
tures being among the first in the tea trade. 



Salem 59 

From this period until near the outbreak of the civil 
war, Salem had vast interests on the seas. A brief 
interval between 1807 and 1815 is to be noted, caused 
by the Embargo Act and war of 1812. The Canton 
trade, as we have seen, came first, quickly followed by 
India and East India ventures. By 1800 records of 
the customs show her ships trading with Manila, 
Mauritius, Surinam, the Gold Coast, Mocha, India, 
China, East and West Indies, Russia, the Mediter- 
ranean ports, France, England, Holland, Norway, 
Madeira, the South American ports, and the British 
provinces. The chief commodities from the East were 
cotton, tea, coffee, sugar, hides, spices, redwood and 
other dyestujffs, gums, silks, and nankeens; from Russia 
and Germany, iron, duck, and hemp; from France, 
Spain, and Madeira, wine and lead; from the West 
Indies, sugar, spirits, and negroes. The exports com- 
prised lumber, provisions, tobacco, silver dollars, and 
New England rum, the Gold Coast affording the best 
market for the latter. 

Several of the old merchants and captains who 
directed this vast commerce linger in the port, and the 
tourist who is an intelligent listener finds them ready 
to entertain him by the hour with tales and reminis- 
cences of those stirring days. Of famous ships, notable 
voyages, adventurous skippers, and mighty merchants 
these reminiscences are full. The little ketch Eliza, 
for instance, left Salem December 22, 1794, ran out to 



60 In Olde Massachusetts 

Calcutta, unloaded, took in cargo, and sailed proudly 
into the home port October 8, 1705, barely nine months 
absent. The Active, a sharp little brig, in 1812 brought 
a cargo of tea and cassia from Canton in 118 days. 
Her rival, the Osprey, beat her, making the same voy- 
age in 117 days. The ship China left Salem for Canton 
May 24, 1817, and arrived back, with a cargo of tea, 
silks, and nankeens, March 30, 1818, barely ten months 
out. A famous vessel was the clipper sliip George, of 
the Calcutta trade, built in 1814 for a privateer by an 
association of Salem ship-carpenters. The war end- 
ing before she was launched, Joseph Peabody, a lead- 
ing Salem merchant of those days, added her to his 
India fleet. For twenty-three years this vessel made 
voyages between Salem and Calcutta with the regularity 
of a steamer. She left Salem for her first voyage May 
23, 1815, and made the home port again June 13, 1816, 
109 days from Calcutta. She left Salem on her last 
voyage August 5, 1836, and returned May 17, 1837, 
111 days from Calcutta, the eighteen voyages performed 
between the first and last dates varying little in duration 
from the standard. One item of her imports during 
this period was 755,000 pounds of indigo. The ship 
Margaret, in the Batavia trade, has an equally inter- 
esting history. She cleared for Sumatra November 19, 
1800, with twelve casks of Malaga wine, two hogsheads 
bacon, and $50,000 in specie, stood out to sea November 
25, arrived in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, Feb- 



Salem 61 

ruary 4, 1801, reached Sumatra April 10, and without 
stopping to trade proceeded to Batavia. Here her 
captain, Samuel Derby, found the Dutch East India 
Company desirous of chartering a vessel to take their 
annual freights to and from Japan, and engaged his 
vessel and crew for the service. He left on June 20, 
and arrived at Nagasaki July 19, being met in the open 
roadstead with a command to fire salutes and dress his 
vessel in bunting before entering the port. On once 
getting ashore, however, the captain and his super- 
cargo were very hospitably entertained by the mer- 
chants of the place. They were feasted, the lady of 
the house was introduced and drank tea with them, and 
they were shown the temples and public places of the 
city. The Margaret got away in November, and 
reached Batavia after a month's passage. Her voyage 
was noteworthy, because she was the second American 
vessel to enter a Japanese port, a Boston vessel, the 
Franklin, commanded by a Salem captain, being the 
first. The whole trade of the country at this time was 
in the hands of the Dutch, who, to retain it, submitted 
to the most vexatious restrictions and to many indig- 
nities. Fifty-three years later Commodore Perry's 
expedition opened Japan to the world. 

Among skippers Capt. Jonathan Carnes figures most 
largely in their reminiscences. In 1794 he was in 
Bencoolin, Sumatra, and chanced to learn that pepper 
grew wild in the northwestern part of the island. He 



62 In Olde Massachusetts 

hastened home, and shared his secret with a wealthy 
merchant, Mr. Jonathan Peele, who at once ordered 
a sharp, trim schooner of 130 tons on the stocks. She 
was finished early in 1795, fitted with four guns, and 
a cargo of brandy, gin, iron, tobacco, and salmon. 
Captain Carnes with his ten seamen then went on board 
and stood away for Sumatra, having given out that 
his destination was Calcutta, and clearing for that port. 
Eighteen months passed away, and still Merchant Peele 
heard no tidings. At length one June day in 1797 
his schooner came gliding into port, the ship-masters 
and merchants crowding about her as she was moored 
to see what she had brought home, her long disappear- 
ance and her owner's reticence having caused no little 
speculation in the port. By and by the hatches were 
opened, and there the cargo was found to be pepper 
in bulk, the first ever imported in that way. But as 
no known port delivered the article in that state, the 
rumor went round that the Rajah had discovered a 
pepper island where the condiment could be had for 
the asking, and in twenty-four hours half a score of 
shipping firms were fitting out swift cruisers to go in 
search of it. Ere they were out, Captain Carnes had 
sold his cargo at an advance of 700 per cent, and was 
away for another voyage, bringing off several ship-loads 
before his secret was discovered. 

Elias H. Derby, the pioneer, was the chief of Salem 
merchants. Between 1785 and 1799 he fitted out 125 



Salem 63 

voyages in thirty-seven different vessels, most of them 
to unknown ports. His last voyage was in some respects 
his most brilliant one. Hostilities between France and 
the United States had just begun when he equipped 
a stanch vessel, the Mount Vernon, with twenty guns 
and fifty men, loaded her with sugar, and sent her to 
the Mediterranean. The cargo cost $43,275. The 
vessel was attacked by the French cruisers on her 
voyage, but beat them off, made her port, exchanged 
her sugar for a cargo of silks and wines, and returned 
to Salem in safety, realizing her owners a net profit of 
$100,000. Mr. Derby died in 1799, before his venture be- 
came a certainty, leaving an estate of more than a million 
dollars, said to have been the largest fortune that had 
been accumulated in this country up to that date. 

William Gray, Joseph Peabody, John Bertram, 
William Orne, and George Crowninshield were worthy 
successors of Mr. Derby. Mr. Gray was a native of 
Lynn, and received his business training in the count- 
ing-room of Richard Derby. In 1807 he owned one 
fourth the tonnage of the port. Salem's chief hotel, the 
Essex House, was his former mansion. Political difficul- 
ties led to his removal to Boston in 1809. The next year 
he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and 
again in 1811. He died at Boston in 1825, having been 
as prosperous in commercial affairs there as in Salem. 

Joseph Peabody was one of several merchants of 
Salem who passed from the quarter deck to the count- 



64 In Olde Massachusetts 

ing-room. After serving on board a privateer he be- 
came a captain in the merchant marine of Salem, and as 
soon as he accumulated a little capital engaged actively 
in commerce. During his mercantile career he built 
eighty-three ships, which he employed in all cases in 
his own trade. These vessels made thirty-two voyages 
to Sumatra, thirty-eight to Calcutta, seventeen to 
Canton, forty-seven to St. Petersburg, and thirty to 
various other ports of Europe. He shipped seven 
thousand seamen at various times to man this fleet, 
and thirty-five of those who entered his service as cabin- 
boys he advanced to be masters. Some of his vessels 
in the China trade made remarkable voyages. The 
little brig Leander, for instance, of only 223 tons' bur- 
den, brought in a cargo from Canton in 1826 which 
paid duties to the amount of $92,392.94. His ship 
Sumatra, of 287 tons, brought a cargo in 1829 that paid 
$128,363.13; in 1830, one that paid $138,480.34; and 
in 1831, a third requiring $140,761.96. Mr. Peabody 
outlived most of the pioneer merchants of Salem, dying 
in 1874. 

In 1870 the foreign entries of Salem had dwindled 
to ten, and in 1878 had entirely ceased, Boston, with 
her greater facilities for handling and distributing, 
having absorbed the business of her whilom rival. To- 
day the old port is almost deserted of shipping; even 
the fishing craft furl their sails at Gloucester. It is 
rarely that a dray rumbles over Derby Street. 



CHAPTER IX 

ANOTHER VIEW OF SALEM 

THE quaint old Custom-house on Derby Street, 
looking down on Derby wharf, is the link connect- 
ing the commercial with the literary history of Salem. 
Here for three long years Hawthorne sat and dreamed 
and wrote, seeing in its officers and habitues prototypes 
of his most distinctive characters, and finally discover- 
ing in its rubbish room the suggestions for his most 
famous romance. 

The building is a large, two-storied brick structure, 
surmounted by a cupola and eagle, not old — dating 
only from 1819 — but with an air of age. Entering 
the hall by a broad flight of several steps, on your right 
is a bulletin board filled with nautical notices, and on 
the left and right, further on, two doors, the first open- 
ing into the Deputy Collector's room, the second into 
the office where the customs business is transacted. 
One regards its railed periphery with more interest when 
one reflects that over eleven millions of dollars have 
passed over it into Uncle Sam's coffers, together with 
the clearances and invoices of some ten thousand ves- 
sels. We found the Custom-house attaches pleasant, 



66 In Olde Massachusetts 

and disposed to facilitate our seeing everything of interest 
in the building. A gentleman in blue led us across 
the hall and into the room of the Deputy Collector, 
which, from 1846 to 1849, had been occupied by the 
great romancer. That officer kindly showed us the 
place where Hawthorne's desk and armchair had stood, 
and the stencil-plate with which he put his name on 
packages; then, opening his desk, he took out for our 
inspection a package of yellow documents, manifests, 
orders, and the like, with the author's autograph in 
red ink upon them. No other rehcs remain. The 
Custom-house was refurnished in 1873, and Haw- 
thorne's desk was then removed to the Essex Institute, 
where it is still preserved. From this room our guide 
led us up-stairs and through the Collector's parlors to a 
little ante-chamber, which he said in Hawthorne's day 
was used for storing old papers and rubbish. It was 
in this room — the weird genius tells his readers — 
that he found the manuscript of the "Scarlet Letter." 
Our guide was very skeptical on this point. " I don't 
believe he did," said he; "I think he made it all up 
himself." But we forbore expressing an opinion. A 
little later we climbed alone to the cupola. It is a small 
room under the gilded eagle, commanding a charming 
view of Salem, the shipping, and the sea beyond. 
Hither the author loved to climb and coin the airy 
fancies that later found expression in the "Scarlet 
Letter" and the "House of the Seven Gables." 




u 



Another View of Salem 67 

There are many well-preserved old men in the 
town who remember Hawthorne as Surveyor of the 
Port. One — a portly, comfortable-looking old gentle- 
man, who, when the author was filling his sinecure 
position in the Custom-house, was fitting with rigging 
and sails the numerous craft turned out of Salem 
ship-yards — now rich and retired, had nothing better 
to do than to accompany me up the street and point 
out two ancient buildings quite intimately connected 
with our author's history. "The Hawthornes are 
an old family in Salem," he remarked, as we began 
our walk, " and well thought of. Major William Haw- 
thorne, who came with Governor Winthrop in the 
Arabella, founded the stock, and there have been 
notable and thrifty men among them ever since. This 
is No. 21 Union Street, a quaint old structure, with 
huge chimney and dormer roof, as you see. Well, in 
the upper northeast corner room, there, Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne was born. It was an auspicious day — July 4, 
1804. There he Hved until 1808, when his father died, 
and he, with his mother, went to live with his maternal 
grandfather, Richard Manning, on Herbert Street. It 
was not a far remove, for, as you see, the back yards of 
the two houses join each other. Most of his early 
years in Salem were spent in the latter. When he 
came back here from Concord in 1840 he went to live 
in his father's house on Union Street, where much of 
his literary work of that period was done. You may 



68 In Olde Massachusetts 

remember an allusion of his to this old house — I think 
in one of his Note-books: 'Here I sit,' he wrote, 'in my 
old accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days 
gone by. Here I have written many tales. If ever I 
have a biographer, he ought to make mention of this 
chamber, in my memoirs, because here my mind and 
character were formed, and here I sat a long, long time 
waiting patiently for the world to know me, and some- 
times wondering why it did not know me sooner, or 
whether it would ever know me at all — at least until 
I was in my grave.'" 

There are other houses in town of interest from their 
association with great men. William H. Prescott was 
born in 1796, in a house that stood on the present site 
of Plummer Hall. The old mansion in which Mr. 
Joshua Ward entertained President Washington on his 
visit to Salem in 1789 was pointed out on Washington 
Street. The birthplace of Timothy Pickering was an 
old mansion on Broad Street, and that of Nathaniel 
Bowditch on Brown Street. Story and Rogers, the 
sculptors, were also natives here. 



CIL\PTER X 

MARBLEHEAD SCENES, 1885 

\ MORE uninviting spot for a town site than 
^ ^ Marblehead presents was never discovered. The 
granite crags and backbones that make up the surface 
of Cape Ann are here at their sharpest and boldest. 
A bare summit of rock, a sunny green hollow be- 
tween, was the scene looked on by the little body of 
fishermen who laid the foundation of Marblehead. 
The harbor, a deep, sheltered cove extending two miles 
into the rocky heart of the cape, was the great attraction 
to these men, whose houses were built along the water 
front. The steam cars land you in the modern quarter; 
to get over to old Marblehead it is necessary to walk or 
ride a fraction of a mile to the water-side. Here are 
deserted, barnacled old wharves, to which only an 
occasional collier or lumber schooner "ties up," dim, 
empty storehouses, retaining a faint, ghostly smell of 
cod and mackerel, and no end of narrow, winding 
streets and alleys, lined some with quaint little box- 
like houses, others with large, once stately dwellings. 

Follow State Street east till it terminates in a waste 
of boulders and ledges, and you have on the right, at 



70 In Olde Massachusetts 

the extreme point of land guarding the entrance to 
the harbor, an old fort, but never a sentry to challenge 
your coming, nor gun to dispute your passage. This 
is Fort Sewall, named after the Hon. Judge Sewall, 
built in colonial times for defence against the French 
and Spanish privateers, that were often seen hovering 
off the coast. I have never looked on a wilder scene, 
one more suggestive of wreck and death, than these 
rocks at the entrance of Marblehead harbor — sharp, 
jagged, serrated masses, they resemble the teeth of 
some huge monster widespread to crunch the bones of 
anything which should enter. Terrible indeed must 
be the scene when an easterly gale sends the surges of 
the Atlantic booming in here unrestrained. What a 
roar, what gnashing, what floods of milk-white foam 
and uplifted spray when the two forces meet! 

One should defer first impressions of the town until, 
passing down Pond Street, he has stood in the old 
burying-ground, the first in Marblehead. It lies scat- 
tered amid the crags on liigh ground near the sea, 
abreast of the old fort, but overlooking ii. The town, 
the harbor, Marblehead Neck with its summer cottages, 
the blue sea with its islands, lie outstretched before one. 
The dead in this old churchyard lie about in the hollows 
wherever sufficient depth of soil for interment could be 
found. Some of the tombstones are very old and bear 
quaint inscriptions. One on the south side reads, 
" Here lyes ye body of Mary wife to Christopher Lati- 





I 






C P 



^ a 



Marblehead Scenes 71 

mer aged 49 years deceased ye 8th of May 1681." Her 
husband has a stone near by dated 1690. Over the 
hill is another stone with a notable inscription: "Here 
lies ye body of Mrs. Miriam Grose who deceased in 
the eighty first year of her age and left 180 children 
grand-children, and great grand-children." What more 
honorable epitaph could a matron desire.-^ Near by 
lies Elizabeth Holyoke, " wife to the Rev. Mr. Edward 
Holyoke born Feb. ye 4th 1691, was married August ye 
18th 1717, and died August ye 15th 1719 leaving an 
infant daughter of eleven weeks' old." Mr. Holyoke 
was one of the early presidents of Harvard. A cluster 
of five brown tombstones in a hollow near the crest of 
the hill calls attention to the place of sepulture of four 
early pastors of "the First Church" in Marblehead, 
and the wife of one. The first pastor was the Rev. 
Samuel Cheever, who died May 29, 1724. Next him 
sleeps his colleague and successor, the Rev. John 
Barnard; his wife, Anna, rests beside her husband; 
next her stone is that of the Rev. William Whitwcll, 
who died in 1781; and the fifth commemorates the Rev. 
Salem Hubbard, whose death occurred in 1808. Two 
of the graves have Latin inscriptions on the head- 
stones. A group of brown-stone tables near by marks 
the graves of the Story family, the Rev. Isaac Story, 
an uncle of the famous jurist, being one of those com- 
memorated. 

Seats are placed at intervals on this outlook ground. 



72 In Olde Massachusetts 

and should the reader be so fortunate as to visit the 
churchyard on a Sunday, he may find the bench on the 
crest of the hill occupied by sundry rugged skippers of 
the famous old ISIarblchead fishing fleet. They love to 
gather there of a Sunday morning or evening, look out 
on the sea and down on the roofs of the town, mingle 
reminiscences, and mildly criticise the ruling powers. 

Coming upon them on a bright afternoon, we found 
these worthy citizens most communicative, and a few 
questions served to elicit some very delightful remi- 
niscences. They heartily agreed in our commendation 
of the outlook. "You see the farthest island yonder 
with the two lighthouses on it," said one; "that's 
Baker's Island, a skipper's landmark for the port when 
returning from the Banks. That little islet this side 
is Half- Way Rock, half-way between Boston I.,ight 
and Cape Ann. Right in the path of shipping, and 
never a vessel struck on it yet. Lowell's Island comes 
next, with the big summer hotel on it, built by a Salem 
man; it didn't pay, though; people wanted to be where 
they could step ashore now and then ; 'twould 'a' burned 
down long ago if there'd been insurance on it. The old 
fort on the P'int there — Fort Sewall — is a relic, 
built in colony times and named after Judge Sewall. 
There is a nice little story too connected with it. A 
few years before the Revolution one Sir Charles Frank- 
Un was sent here to repair it, and stopped at the Foun- 
tain Inn, whose roof you can see down yonder under 



Marblehead Scenes 73 

the trees. There was a maid servant there — Agnes 
Surrage — very pretty. Sir Charles was heard to say 
she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen. He 
found her one day barefooted scrubbing the stairs, and 
asked her why she didn't wear shoes. ' If you please, 
sir,' said Agnes, droppin' a courtesy, ' I'm savin' 'em for 
meetin'.' Whereupon Sir Charles declared she should 
wear shoes every day, sent her to school, educated her, 
and many years later in Lisbon, after his wife had died, 
married her. The gossips said the great earthquake 
frightened him into it. 

"All through the war of the Revolution the fort de- 
fended the town. In Februray, 1814, there was great 
commotion within its walls. The drums beat to arms, 
and all the people flocked to the hill to learn the cause 
of the disturbance. Several British cruisers were off 
the coast in those days, and they now saw two of them 
chasing one of our vessels, the gallant old Constitution, 
as it turned out. She ran far enough to get a good 
position, and then turned and thrashed the Britishers 
handsomely — took 'em both into Boston, the frigate 
Cyane of thirty-four guns and the sloop of war Levant 
of twenty-one guns. It is really too bad for Govern- 
ment to let the old fort go to ruin. There ain't a bit 
of a garrison, you see, only a custodian, who lives 'way 
over there, and takes a walk through the old fort may 
be once a week to see that 'taint carried off piecemeal 
by visitors." 



74 In Olde Massachusetts 

We asked about the Story tombs and the family of 
the Chief Justice. 

"Oh, yes; he was a Marblehead boy," they repHed. 
"His father. Dr. EHsha Story, practised here all his 
life, married a Marblehead girl, and is buried in the 
Green Street yard. The Chief Justice was born here, 
schooled here under Master John Bond, and went from 
here to Cambridge. His uncle, Isaac Story, who lies 
yonder, was pastor of the Congregational Church in 
Marblehead for many years." 



CHAPTER XI 

QUAINT OLD BARNSTABLE 

BARNSTABLE is one of the quaintest, staidest, 
and most interesting of Cape villages. Unlike 
the towns nearer the point, there is a green rural land- 
scape inland, while the marine view is the finest on the 
coast. To get a view of the latter, one must follow 
the main street a mile and a half to the harbor-mouth 
and the sweep of sand dunes which wall it in and add 
greatly to the impressiveness of the scene. This main 
street is of itself a feature. It is broad, elm-shaded, 
lined with old, mossy, long-roofed dwellings, and smart 
new cottages and villas in equal proportions. Begin- 
ning at the railway station on the bluff, it winds down 
into the valley and around the head of a cove jutting 
in from the harbor, then up Training Hill, passing on 
the crest an ancient church, blankly white, with graves 
in the rear, of such families as the Otises, Thatchers, 
Hinckleys, and others, and continues on, lined with fine 
old country-seats, to its terminus at "the Point." 
About midway stands the village tavern, under a group 
of mighty elms, old, rambling, and mossy, serving to 
remind the traveler how cheerless and uncomfortable 



76 In Olde Massachusetts 

the inn of colonial times could be. I have no doubt 
that Dr. Dwight, in his famous pilgrimage over the 
Cape in 1800, as recorded in vol. iii. of his " Travels," 
stopped at tliis tavern. 

A road leaves the main street at the foot of Training 
Hill under the church, and follows the trend of the cove 
beside slowly decaying docks to the harbor-mouth, the 
broad expanse of salt meadow, and the wide sweep of 
dunes. From this bluflP the eye roves delightedly over 
the scene. Beside us is the harbor — open water — 
one mile wide and four miles long. Thrust out from 
Sandwich, which joins Barnstable on the west, is Sandy 
Neck, a long tongue of sand one and one-half miles 
wide and seven miles long, crooked landward like a 
bent forefinger. On the outside of this finger lies the 
cold steel-blue sea; within is the harbor, and perhaps 
the greatest body of salt meadow on the Atlantic Coast. 
Eight thousand tons of hay are cut upon it annually 
by the fortunate owners. The sand on the neck has 
been tossed by the wind into dunes of every fantastic 
and grotesque shape — round, truncated, sugar-loaf, 
turreted, serrated — here one with its top sheared 
clean oflF, another half disemboweled ; fortunate for all 
is it that they are covered with beach-grass v/hose tough, 
fibrous roots securely anchor them; otherwise the first 
winter gale would lift them bodily and sift them over 
the marshes. The sun shines on the dunes from the 
east, and their white sides sparkle like diamonds, in 



Quaint Old Barnstable 77 

striking contrast to the dark blue of the sea. The vast 
stretch of marshes affords a stranger sight. They are 
dotted with myriads of poles forming the frames of 
hay-ricks, which cover them by hundreds. 

Beyond the marshes over the Neck we can almost see 
the salt meadows, where the huge dredges of the Cape 
Cod Canal and Navigation Company are cutting the 
channel of another national highway. It is five miles 
south, across the Cape to Vineyard Sound; it is twenty- 
eight miles by water to Provincetown at the extreme 
tip of the tongue, and fifty by land — wliich illustrates 
admirably the extreme curvature of the Cape. The 
ocean is quiet to-day. The surf only moans and sighs, 
with varying rhythm. In a northwest blizzard it is 
different; but perhaps before concluding we shall be 
able to give the reader an idea of what a " nor' wester " 
on the Cape Cod Coast is like. 

We have passed many pleasant evenings this sum- 
mer in the society of a gentleman of the village, a 
veteran editor and politician, who lives in a large, 
square-roofed house, filled from cellar to attic with 
quaint furniture and mementoes of the past. In 
1814, when the Barnstable sloop Independence was 
captured by the British frigate Nymph, our friend, 
then a lad of six years, was on board, and distinctly 
remembers his father's lifting him upon the taffrail 
of the frigate to see the sloop burn. Few public 
events have happened since that the Major is not 



78 III Oldc MaHsachusetts 

latriiliar vvilli, and liis fniid of anocdole and repartee 
is inexhaustible. 

One day, !<)()kin<( lIiron;;li liis eolleclion of rjirilies, 
we <-aiiH' upon llie account of llie centennial atniiver- 
sary in IS.'J!) of llie settlement of liarnstahle, containing 
letters and speeches from John (^uincy Adams, Harri- 
son (J ray Otis, Dr. James 'rhal<-her, the aimalist of 
the l{(>volulion, and other eminent men, natives of, or 
associated with, the town. "We are especially proud 
of that centcmiial," said Major P., "because at that 
time we first introduced and successfully established 
tin; custom of invilin;^ ladies to be present on such 
occasions. When the matter was first proposed, Mr. 
William Stur^is, of IJoston, a native of l{ainsliible, 
rcfns(>d to «'ri<j;a,<^e in it unless ladies should be invited. 
Tlie idea was well received, and the fair sex was well 
represented. ( "hief-Juslice Shaw was a native of Harn- 
slable, and he and his wife were present. Mrs. Shaw's 
name was Hope, and I remember the toast most widely 
clieered w.is lliis: 'There is Hope in llie Judiciary.' 
After lli;it it be< aine lh(> custom to invite ladies to such 
c<>lel)ralious. Shortly after, the oj)enin<^ of the ('unard 
Ijine was celebrated in IJoslon, to which ladies were 
asked, and a friend said to me: 'You see how <|uickly 
we follow Hartistable's exam])le."' 

Old books, old l(>tters, old diaries, old sermons were 
here in profusion; the killer were exceedingly interesting, 
;is showing how boldly and cireclively Puritan <"l<'rgy- 



Quuiiit Old li;ini.sl;.l.l(« 79 

men altiickcil the sins jin<l lollies of llie day. A ser- 
mon l)y llie l{ev. (Jeorjije VVeekes ol" I larwieli, preached 
about 17(50, on the sin of \veiirin<; peiiw i;i;s, contains 
this iiiffenious argument: "Adam, so lonjr as he con- 
tinued in iimocency, did wear his own hair and not a 
periwig. Indeed, I do not see how it was possible that 
Adam should dislike his own hair and therefore cut it, 
that so he might wear a periwig and yet have conlinucd 
iimocent." 

But for an oddity in sermonizing, commend us lo a 
sermon preached in Yarmouth, of which the title-page 
is: " Ehenezer, or a Faithful and Kxact Account of (lod's 
Great (ioodness to Mr. Khene/er 'I'aylor of Yarmouth, 
on Cape Cod, who, on the (ith <lay of August, 1720, 
was buried alive about twelve feet deep imder stones 
and earth in his own well, where he lay for the space 
of eleven hours, and was afterwards taken up with- 
out any considerable hurt; with a suitable Improve- 
ment of such a Miraculous Deliverance." The 
discourse was delivered at the meeting-house before 
a large congregation, and at a cintain stage Ebenezcr 
Taylor, his wife, and children, were called up before 
the people and addressed in turn. Here are the lu'ads 
of the discourse: "Introduction. Cha[)ter I., Nar- 
rative; Chapter II., Remarks upon some passages in 
the narrative; Chapter III., Cleiieral improvement of 
the ruirrative. Reflection, inference; Chapter IV., A 
particular address: I., To Fbenezer Taylor; II., To 



80 In Olde Massachusetts 

his wife; III., To his children." It would seem to 
have been sufficient discipline for Ebenezer to have 
been buried for eleven hours in his own or any one else's 
well, without being called before the public congrega- 
tion and having the occasion "improved" to liim, and 
his wife, and cliildren, but they did things differently 
in those days. 

Our old friend and his relics are not our only means 
of entertainment, however. There is the tavern, and 
there is the circle about the landlord's fire. In 1639 
one Thomas Lembert was licensed "to keep victualing 
or an ordinary for the entertainment of strangers, and 
to draw wine in Barnstable," and I think this hotel was 
the one then built. Certainly it is old enough for it. 
The landlord — at least the only one I have been able 
to find — is a valetudinarian who clings to the fire in 
the rusty office stove, and tells tales feebly yet garru- 
lously of events of seventy years ago. He has plenty of 
company through the summer evenings in other vet- 
erans, sea-captains and mariners, of the days when 
Barnstable had her great fishing fleet and coasting 
trade, and was one of the busiest ports of the Common- 
Wealth. Of storms and shipwrecks, derelicts, flotsam 
and jetsam, big catches, sea-serpents, ice-floes, and 
boreal experiences, their reminiscences are full. They 
are happiest in nights of storm. I remember one such 
night, when a nor'easter howled down the chimney 
and rattled the ancient casements. The stove glowed 



Quaint Old Barnstable 81 

dull red; the long settee was piled with horse-blankets, 
cape-coats, sou'westers, and other impedimenta of the 
visitors. A kerosene lamp, swung over all, shone 
dimly, half obscured by tobacco smoke; and the drip 
from the faucet of the tank labeled "Ice-Water" into 
the wooden pail placed below was equaled in monotony 
by the steady tick of the great eight-day clock in the 
corner. The four wooden armchairs were occupied 
by the landlord, two ancient mariners, and the visitor 
"from York," while the audience balanced themselves 
on the edge of the table or nestled amid the miscellane- 
ous mass on the settee. 

^ The story-tellers naturally fell upon the subject of 
Cape gales, and after certain prodigious feats of wind 
and wave had been narrated, a lean old salt, hitherto 
silent, broke in with: "But a nor'easter ain't a sarcum- 
stance to a nor' wester — not one that means bizness. 
A nor' wester, you see, comes without warnin' ; it pounces 
on ye, and it's so cold ye'd think it ud cl'ared the space 
betwixt this an' the North Pole at a leap. D'yer mind 
the blizzard of 1826, Cap'n, wust ever known on the 
Cape, an' the wreck of the Almira ? No ? You was a 
boy then. Wal, 'twas the 16th of January, 'bout noon. 
I was standin' on the bluff 'tother side of Sandy Neck, 
lookin' down on Sandwich harbor. It ud be'n dirty 
weather fer days — wind east, then south, snow fust 
an' then rain, an' a fleet of coasters was huddled to- 
gether in the harbor waitin' fair weather. That mornin' 



82 In Olde Massachusetts 

the weather was warm an' clearin'. Clouds scurried 
along from the south, high in air, an' bits o' blue shone 
through the rifts. Wal, I stood on the hill, an' not a 
furlong off was old Cephas Hinckley, the saltiest skipper 
of that day. I called to him, but he didn't answer — 
his eyes was closely follerin' the motions of a little 
schooner, the Almira, wood-laden, belongin' in Sand- 
wich, whose skipper had be'n waitin' some days for a 
chance to git to sea an' steer for Boston. The httle 
craft went along under the light breeze, an' as she 
cleared the p'int, clapped on all sail an' stood to nor'ard. 
Captain Hinckley raised his arms to heaven. 'Gone 
out,' sez he solemnly; 'he'll never cum in ag'in.' 'An* 
why not, Cap'n ? ' sez I at his elbow. ' Why, man alive, 
sez he, ' can't you see a terrible norther is brewin' ? 
He'll be triced up in ice afore the first watch turns in, 
an' a boomin' gale on a lee shore tew.' Notwithstandin', 
the little Almira kept on with her crew of three — 
Josiah Ellis, master, his son Josiah, an' John Smith, 
seaman — cleared Manomet P'int, an' with Plymouth 
light for a beacon M'orked slowly across the outer bay. 
Up in the nor'west, half up from the sea line, an' wi- 
denin' every second, was a belt of cold, clear, steel-blue 
sky; same time the clouds that hed be'n hurryin' north 
all day turned tail an' went scuddin' into the sou'east. 
In five minutes the storm struck 'em, nigh throwin' 
the Almira on her beam-ends. Cold ? You've no 
idea of it except you've be'n thar. Every bit of mois- 



Quaint Old Barnstable 83 

ture that wind touched froze; icicles hung from the 
men's beards. The spray flew high over the catheads, 
an' in twenty minutes men, decks, spars, shrouds, an' 
sails was a mass of gUtterin', creakin', crackin' ice. 
They tried bearin' up for Plymouth harbor, but it lay 
in the eye o' the wind. They tacked once, twice, then 
the main boom was tore from the mast, the halyards 
giv' way, an' down cum the icy mains'l with a crashin' 
and splinterin'. To furl it was impossible. They let 
it He, an' laid the vessel's course to the wind, braced the 
fores'l fore an' aft, not bein' able to haul it down, loosed 
the jib, an' let her drive. The wind howled an' fought 
the fores'l, cracked its coverin' of ice, an' tore it in 
shreds; but the jib held, an' give her leeway; so, to- 
wards mornin', they rounded Manomet P'int, an' cum 
round into Barnstable Bay ag'in only eight miles from 
wher' they started. 

"At daybreak they passed their house, an' saw the 
smoke curlin' from their own chimneys ; jist then, bein' 
mos' frozen, they lashed the helm an' went intew the 
little cabin, hopin' to light a fire. The jib, their last 
sail, soon hung in tatters from the mast, an' the vessel, 
broadside to the blast, drifted on, past Sandwich, Barn- 
stable, Yarmouth, makin' as straight as though piloted 
for that long reef of rock that makes out from Dennis, 
with a smooth beach on its western side an' a cove on 
the east. By good luck a seaman livin' near the reef 
saw the Almira comin' an' summoned help. A great 



84 In Olde Massachusetts 

crowd gathered on the shore end of the reef — sailors 
an' fishermen, all used tew the sea. On she dru'v, no 
one, to appearance, on board. At last the crowd give 
a mighty shout, an' the three men in the cabin staggered 
on deck. 'Up with your helm,' shouted the seamen. 
'Make sail, an' round the rocks.' It was onpossible. 
The hulk was lifted like a dead thing by a mighty 
wave an' flung broadside on the rocks with a crash. 
Still she hung together, an' the crew huddled on the 
quarter abaft the binnacle, which was not swept by 
the waves. The seamen tried to launch a boat through 
the surf, which was heavy with 'sludge,' but it filled 
an' was drawn back with the wash. Captain Ellis now 
went for'ard an' sot down on the win'lass, bein' over- 
come with the drowsiness of death. ' Rise up, rise up, 
an' stir yourself,' the men shouted. 'We'll save ye 
yet!' Not one but knew what the Captain's drowsi- 
ness meant. But Ellis was already benumbed, an' 
was soon devoured by the sea. Smith soon followed 
the Captain's example, an' was swept away. Mean- 
time the boat was launched, but when it got to the 
wreck the tide had fallen so low that they couldn't 
reach the ship, which was popped up on the reef, an' 
they had to wait for the rise. That cum' about four 
o'clock, an' the men scrambled on board an' took 
off Josiah, the Cap's son, though his hands was frozen 
to the tiller-ropes, an' he didn't know anything. He 
got well, but he lost both hands an' his feet." ^ 



CHAPTER XII 

NANTUCKET STORIES 

THERE is here and there in Nantucket a mansion 
that impresses one as being of the patrician 
order. The one we have in mind stands on the corner of 
a principal street, with well-kept lawns and gardens 
in the rear, a house that has entertained General Grant 
and President Arthur, with many men distinguished in 
other walks of life. Its owner is a retired merchant,^ 
one of those who forty years ago made this isolated isle 
known and respected to the remotest corners of the 
earth. He began his business career in 1832, as ship- 
builder, and sent out many craft that were the pride of 
the seas. In 1839, as our Consul at New Zealand, he 
threw to the breeze the first American flag ever hoisted 
there. When the gold fever broke out in 1849 he sent 
his ship around the Horn to San Francisco, and him- 
self performed the journey overland, enduring all the 
hardships incident to the way. He owned the first 
tea ship that entered the port of Foochow after it was 
opened to commerce in 1854. One of his last ventures, 
of which a pleasant chapter might be made, was his 
* The late F. C. Sanford. 



86 In Olde Massachusetts 

journey to London and then to Paris in 1855, where 
he chartered to the French Government the ship Great 
Republic, then the largest vessel in the world, to be 
used as a transport in the Crimean war. The ship 
took at one voyage 3,300 horses, with oflBcers and artil- 
lery, and earned $184,000 for her owners in fourteen 
months. 

The reminiscences of such a man can but be of the 
greatest interest. 

" I dare say you never knew that the history of this 
Island is linked with that of the famous tea party in 
Boston Harbor," he remarked one evening as we drew 
our chairs before a fire of glowing red coal in his library. 
"It was in this way. In the June of 1773 William 
Rotch had two stanch vessels — the Beaver and Dart- 
mouth, old whalers — lying idle at his docks, and one 
day, closeted in his counting-room, he chartered them 
to a stranger from Boston to proceed to England for a 
cargo of the East India Company's tea. That com- 
pany had just been granted a monopoly of the tea trade 
of the colonies, and having decided on sending consign- 
ments to the four principal colonial ports, needed quite 
a fleet for the purpose. Perhaps, too, they thought the 
tea would be received with better grace coming in 
American bottoms. At least an agent of the Boston 
consignees was despatched to Mr. Rotch at Nantucket. 
Naturally, he was glad to charter to so powerful a cor- 
poration, and the Beaver and Dartmouth were speedily 



Nantucket Stories 87 

got ready for sea. The story-tellers make a point here 
that the commander of the Beaver on this voyage 
was Nathan Coffin, the famous whaling captain of 
Nantucket, whom Bancroft afterward cited as an ex- 
ample of the indomitable spirit of the patriots of '76. 
Coffin, they say, at the opening of the war was home- 
ward bound from a whaling cruise, and was taken by 
one of His INIajesty's cruisers, whose captain offered 
him liberty on condition that he served his King. 
"Hang me to your yardarm if you will," replied the 
intrepid tar, "but don't ask me to become a traitor to 
my country." 

The name of William Rotch often occurs in the 
Island's Records. He was a leading merchant on the 
island for some years before the Revolution. During 
the war, like most of the islanders, he remained neutral, 
with the result of being plundered by both parties. 
After the war, commerce being prostrate in America, 
he sought the British court and petitioned the King 
to offer a bounty on whale oil, that the business might 
be prosecuted from English ports. "And what will 
you give me for the privilege ? " "I will give Your 
Majesty the young men of my native island." The 
merchant, however, found little sympathy with his 
project in England, and proceeded to France, where 
he met with better success. Louis XVI. granted him 
a subsidy, and he established himself at Dunkirk, 
where he prosecuted the business with considerable 



88 In Olde Massachusetts 

success, sending the first whaler into the Pacific that 
ever ventured those waters; and as most of the officers 
and men who manned his ships were of Nantucket, 
he hterally fulfilled his promise of giving his patron 
the young men of his native island. Mr. Rotch spent 
the last years of his life at New Bedford, and aided 
largely in building up the important whaHng interests 
of that port. 

The Nantucket whale fishery had, as has been 
shown, a small beginning. Her sailors were among 
the first to venture into the icy waters of Baffin's Bay 
and Davis Straits. In 1745 a vessel was loaded with 
oil by Nantucket merchants and sent direct to England. 
Several years before the Revolution her hardy seamen 
had ventured into the South Atlantic. In 1775 the 
port had a fleet of 150 vessels, manned by 2,025 seamen, 
which brought to her warehouses 30,000 barrels of 
sperm and 4,000 barrels of whale oil annually. Dur- 
ing the Revolution few vessels were sent to the cruising 
grounds, and for a whole generation succeeding there 
was little revival of the old spirit of enterprise. In 
1818, however, without any special predisposing cause, 
the business all at once assumed its old vigor. In 1821 
this little island, with a population of barely 7,000, had 
seventy-two whale ships in commission, aggregating 
22,000 tons burden, besides quite a fleet of brigs, 
schooners, and sloops. In 1842 the business culmi- 
nated, eighty-six ships and two brigs and schooners then 



Nantucket Stories 89 

forming its whaling marine. It is to this period that 
most of the tales told in the captain's room relate. 
Half a score of ice-battered, oil-blackened old hulks 
unloading on its piers at once was no uncommon sight 
in those days. As many more would be taking in 
stores. In eight long candle factories the snow-white 
spermaceti was fashioned. Eight hundred coopers, 
blacksmiths, riggers, and stevedores went down to the 
docks every morning. When a vessel out at sea mak- 
ing the harbor was sighted there was commotion in the 
little port.. In the rear of the post-ofEce was a tall 
flagstaff, on which a blue flag, bearing the word " Ship," 
in large letters, was displayed. Owners, captains, sea- 
men, women, and children — every one who had a 
venture on the deep — then gathered to speculate as 
to which of the port's eighty-two vessels the incoming 
ship might be, the extent and value of her catch, and 
whether her crew was as complete and sound in limb 
as when she left the harbor. INIeantime the " camels " 
were steaming out to the harbor bar. This contri- 
vance was in reality a floating dry-dock, used for lifting 
vessels over the bar, at the entrance of the harbor. It 
was moved by steam, and, when signaled, proceeded 
to the bar, was sunk, the vessel was towed within, and 
the water being pumped from the camel, the latter rose 
with the ship in its embrace, and propelled itself and 
its burden over the bar. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Nantucket's first tea-party 

/'^NE autumn day my friend invited me to drive 
^-^ across the island to Maddequet, a fishing hamlet 
on the East Coast. The drive was a pleasant one in 
itself — among farms, over wide heaths gay with 
golden-rod and the scarlet berries of the meal plum 
vine, then along the romantic shores of Long Pond, 
and finally to the head of the little harbor on which 
stands Maddequet. The interest of the drive to us 
was greatly enhanced by the recollections of our friend. 
Every mossy farmhouse and quaint old country-seat 
along the way recalled reminiscences, all tending to 
establish the ethnological importance of the island. In 
truth, considering its position, Nantucket has been 
wonderfully prolific of great men and women. Among 
the first families on the island were the Macys. The 
Folgers are another noteworthy race. The only child 
of "Peter Ffoulger," born after his removal from 
Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket, was Abiah, who in 
her young maidenhood removed to Boston and married 
Josiah Franklin, the tallow chandler. Her fifteenth 
child by this marriage was Benjamin Franklin, the 







B 
z 
-< 

^ 






Nantucket's First Tea-Party 91 

philosopher. The mother in talent and worth is said 
to have been every way worthy of her illustrious son. 
Another member of this family was Charles J. Folger, 
former Secretary of the Treasury, who was born in 
Nantucket, in a house which stood on the site of the 
present Sherburne House, on Orange Street. The 
Coffins, famous in naval annals, are a numerous family 
on the island. Lucretia Mott was born at Nantucket 
in 1793. Phoebe A. Hanaford is a native of Siasconset, 
Gen. George N. Macy, of the late war; the Rev. Dr. 
F. C. Ewer, of New York; the Mitchells, mathemati- 
cians and astronomers, and scores of other men and 
women who have gained honorable positions in the 
professions. 

Maddequet contains little of interest to the average 
tourist. There are fishing boats drawn up on the 
beach, nets drying in the sun, bronzed and bearded 
fishermen lounging about, whose talk is of the blue- 
fish, scup, eels, herring, lobsters, and clams which form 
the objects of their daily pursuit. It was the first point 
of settlement, Thomas Macy spending the winter of 
1659 here, and for a century it continued to be the 
residence of some of the best families of the island. 
Of these were the Starbucks, who lived in a fine old 
country house a little outside of the village, in which, 
in 1745, pretty Ruth Wentworth and a certain Captain 
Morris, of Boston, owner of a China tea ship, made the 
first cup of tea ever brewed in Nantucket. 



92 In Olde Massachusetts 

"The Starbucks have figured largely in our annals 
as merchants, ship owners, and sea captains," said my 
friend. They were Friends in religious belief. At 
the time of which I speak the family consisted of 
Grandpa and Grandma Starbuck, Nathaniel, their 
son, his wife Content, their son Nathaniel, Jr., absent 
on a voyage to China, Esther, a maiden sister, and 
Ruth Wentworth, a niece, whose parents had emigrated 
to Vermont a year before, leaving her in charge of her 
uncle and aunt Starbuck. Ruth Wentworth was a 
charming maiden of eighteen, petite in form, with 
deep-blue eyes and golden hair, attractions to which 
her Quaker simplicity and modesty gave additional 
charm. One day in December the household was 
thrown into confusion by a letter from the sailor son, 
dated at Boston, saying that his ship was in port, and 
that he should be home in time to see the New Year in. 
He added that he had sent his sea chest — containing 
a box of tea for his mother and some trinkets for Ruth 
— by the vessel which bore his letter, and that he 
should bring as his guest a dear friend. Captain Morris, 
of Boston, owner of the vessel in which he had sailed. 
The chest came presently, and as appears from time- 
stained letters still retained in the Starbuck family, 
created quite an excitement in the hamlet. It was 
the first tea ever known on the island. Rumors of a 
fragrant herb which had been introduced into Boston 
and had met with great favor there were rife, but no 



Nantucket's First Tea-Party 93 

one had seen the curiosity, and all the neighbors 
gathered in the great Starbuck kitchen to see the box 
opened, and taste and smell of its contents. The 
guests were expected on the last day of the year, and it 
was decided to have a New Year's tea-party, and at 
the same time watch the Old Year out and the New 
Year in — a custom still observed in many country 
districts. Aunt Content and grandma, Aunt Esther 
and little Ruth were all busy. The pantry shelves 
fairly groaned with the load of goodies cooked for the 
occasion; the great parlor, which had not been used 
since Aunt Mehitabel's wedding, was opened; the floor 
newly waxed and polished, and spread with beautiful 
mats and rugs, found in Cousin Nathaniel's chest. 
Jude, the slave girl, rubbed the fender and great and- 
irons of the fireplace until they shone, while Ruth 
looped back the cliintz curtains, placed a bouquet of 
autumn leaves and scarlet berries on the mantel, dis- 
posed the stiflF wooden chairs a little less primly, and 
arranged the rugs and mats where their colors blended 
harmoniously, stopping at intervals with her head on 
one side and her hands in the pockets of her house- 
keeper's apron to view the general effect. Aunt Esther 
did not look with favor on these proceedings. 'Sho', 
child,' she admonished, 'I fear thee is too much taken 
with these vanities; the bright things of this world are 
of short duration'; but grandma interposed with her 
voice of authority, and said it was natural and right for 



94 In Olde Massachusetts 

the young to admire beauty. At length the day came. 
Uncle Edward Starbuck and his family, and Lieutenant 
Macy's family, were invited to meet the distinguished 
guest. Ruth dressed early to receive the visitors. I 
have seen a letter in which she described her costume, 
a new blue gown, with lace in the neck that grandma 
had given her, her mother's gold necklace, and her 
golden curls tied back with a blue ribbon that grandma 
had bought in London. Coming into the kitchen from 
her toilet, she found Aunt Content, Aunt Edward Star- 
buck, and Mrs. Lieutenant Macy, all at their wits' 
end over the problem, how to cook and serve the tea. 
Mrs. Lieutenant Macy said she had heard it ought to 
be well cooked to be palatable, and Aunt Starbuck 
observed that a lady in Boston who had drunk tea 
said it needed a good quantity for steeping, which was 
the reason it was so expensive. The result was that 
Aunt Content hung the bright five-gallon bell-metal 
teapot on the crane, put in a two-quart bowlful of tea 
with plenty of water, and left Aunt Esther and Lydia 
Ann Macy to watch and see that it boiled. Presently 
Ruth, who happened into the hall, heard Lydia say: 
'I have heard that when tea is drunk it gives a bril- 
liancy to the eyes and youthful freshness to the com- 
plexion. I am fearful thy sister-in-law failed to put 
in a sufficient quantity of leaves'; so Aunt Esther 
added another bowlful. When the tea had boiled an 
hour Cousin Nathaniel and his friend the captain 



Nantucket's First Tea-Party 95 

came. The captain was tall and lithe, with dark hair 
and tawny beard, and Ruth thought she had never 
seen a man so noble-looking. Meantime the tea had 
been boiled down until only a gallon remained in the 
kettle, when it was poured into grandma's large silver 
tankard and placed on the table; a silver porringer, 
with cream and lumps of sugar, was placed beside each 
guest's plate. When dinner was announced, the cap- 
tain took out Miss Ruth, much to the annoyance of 
Aunt Esther, who subsequently gave her niece a private 
lecture on the impropriety of young girls putting them- 
selves forward. After the blessing Mrs. Content said, 
hesitatingly: 'I have brewed a dish of tea, but am 
fearful I have not prepared it as it hath need, and 
would ask your opinion.' Cousin Nathaniel sniffed 
and sipped, and then answered : ' As my mother desires 
my opinion I must needs say that a spoonful of this 
beverage which she has prepared for us with such 
hospitable intent would nearly kill any one of us.' 
Captain Morris remarked that his hostess would keep 
the decoction for dyeing her woollens, and said he 
would show her how to make tea. 'And this young 
lady,' he added, turning to Ruth, ' shall brew the first 
dish of the beverage ever made in Nantucket.' 

" Dinner over, the captain and Ruth went out into the 
great kitchen to make the tea. He took Uncle Nat's 
large gray stone pitcher and put into it as much tea as 
he could hold between thumb and finger for each guest, 



96 In Olde Massachusetts 

and an additional pinch for the pitcher, poured on 
boiUng water sufficient for all; then Ruth raked out 
the coals in the wide fireplace and it was set on them 
until it came to a gentle boil. When the tea had boiled, 
it was poured into the tankard and served to the guests 
in silver porringers, with cream and sugar. All pro- 
nounced it delicious, and to Ruth it seemed like nectar. 
But the tea-party had its sequel, and that was the mar- 
riage a few weeks later of the captain and Ruth Went- 
worth. I mention the matter because the story is only 
half told without it." 



CHAPTER XIV 

SHIPS AND SAILORS OF NANTUCKET 

ONE stormy autumn evening as we drew our chairs 
to the fire our friend became particularly ani- 
mated in his descriptions. "I was born in 1809," he ob- 
served. "The brightest days of Nantucket within my 
recollection were between the years 1820 and 1845. The 
busiest one day that I remember was in November, 
1827, when seventy-two vessels passed Brant Point 
Light, outward bound, some to the Pacific on a three- 
years' whaling voyage, some to the coast of Chili for 
seals, thence to China for teas, others oil-laden to Lon- 
don, to Havre, to the Hague, and to almost every port 
on the Atlantic coast and West Indies. You who see 
the port in its decadence can have little idea of the 
scene of activity it then presented. A thousand work- 
men hurried down to the docks of a morning. The 
sound of hammer and adze began at sunrise, and ceased 
only at sunset. The multitudinous din of the docks 
continued often the night through. I love to stand 
now on the wharves where the huge, oil-blackened 
hulls of the whalers once swung, and recall the scene. 
Heavy timbered three-storied warehouses filled the 



98 In Olde Massachusetts 

heads of the wharves, beside which half a hundred 
vessels would lie, discharging or taking in cargo. 
Overhead were the sail-lofts, with the riggers and 
sailmakers busy sewing the wliite canvas or shaping 
spars. Then there were the blacksmiths' shops, 
where the ironwork for the ships and the tools used 
in fishing were made; and the coopers' shops, that 
turned out their hundreds of butts and casks per 
day, and the huge rope-walks, seven in number, 
where men spun, walking to and fro, all the cordage 
used in ship-building and for repairs. It was indeed 
a busy scene. 

" We built our own ships, too, in those times. Brant 
Point was lined with ship-yards, and there were ship- 
ways, where we took up ships for repairs. Some 
famous vessels we turned out — stout, oak-bowed 
whalers, clipper ships, and fleet schooners that would 
run down to Havana and be back with a cargo of fruit 
in less than no time. There was the Rose, built in 1803, 
one of the fastest sailers afloat. Coming down the 
China Sea in one of her voyages (in charge of the mate, 
the captain having died in Cliina), she was taken by a 
British frigate and carried to Mauritius, and afterwards 
used by John Bull for a despatch boat, or in any 
capacity where speed was a requisite. Then came the 
Charles Carroll, built by myself and partners, and our 
ship Lexington, in 1836. Next the Nantucket, built 
by H. G. O. Dunham, of live oak and copper-fastened 



Ships and Sailors of Nantucket 99 

— a crack sliip, as was tlie Joseph Starbuck, turned 
out of our yards in 1838. 

"The Bedford, however, was Nantucket's bravest 
ship. I have tlie last receipt for her cabin work, given 
AYilliam Rotch in 1772. She made several voyages and 
then went out of commission, laid up by the war of the 
Revolution. Seven years she lay with her bowsprit up 
in what is now J. B. IVIacy's store. By and by, in 1782, 
the Ship Maria, Captain Mooers, just off the stocks 
at Scituate, came in to refit. As she did so, Mr. Rotch 
got news from London that the preliminary articles of 
peace would soon be signed, and at the same time 
learned that a cargo of oil delivered in London at that 
time would 'make a strike.' The Maria wasn't ready, 
so he hauled down the Bedford, loaded her, put Captain 
Mooers in command, and she sailed for London, and 
arrived there February 7, 1780, with 488 butts of oil in 
her hold, as this manifest in my hand states. Well, 
the pith of the story is, that this ship was the first to 
fly the American flag in England. It appears by a 
letter from William Rotch, Jr., that she arrived in the 
Downs February 23, the day of the signing of the pre- 
liminary treaty of peace between the United States, 
France, and England, and hearing of this displayed in 
London the first United States flag. The colors caused 
the Admiralty no little vexation and debate as to whether 
she should be admitted or not. In London the Bed- 
ford and her flag made the sensation of the day, and 

LOfC. 



100 In Olde Massachusetts 

scores of people visited the ship to inspect the new 
piece of bunting. 

"The dim interiors of those old warehouses often 
recur to me as I walk the wharves. Always fragrant, 
always mysterious from the strange store of old-world 
treasures and commodities they held. Cassia and 
sandalwood, liquorice, spices of India and Ceylon, tea- 
chests covered with strange hieroglj'phics, puncheons 
of Jamaica, rare old Madeira in butts, fabrics of Persia 
and India, boxes of pure white spermaceti, Arabian 
coffee, bales of whalebone and cotton — a boy might 
have learned of the products of the whole earth by 
studying our world in miniature. And what a multi- 
tude of clerks, factors, and stevedores was necessary 
to the handling of this great body of merchandise — 
for Nantucket was a great distributing as well as receiv- 
ing port then — the products that came to us in ex- 
change for our seal oil and bone being resliipped to all 
our domestic ports and also abroad. The trade created 
a special model of swift and graceful vessels called 
coasters, two or three of which Avere always to be seen 
lying in the docks taldng in cargo. But those old days 
are gone," concluded my friend with a sigh. "This 
picture that we old people see as we walk about the 
wharves will never be visible again to the outward 
sense." 

"I have some quaint fancies while looking into my 
sea-coal fire," he observed on another occasion. " About 



Ships and Sailors of Nantucket 101 

ships, now — I love to tliink of them as ha\'ing an 
individuality like men. Some are prosperous, you 
know, and some never earn their owners a penny. 
Some acliieve fame, others have it thrust upon them; 
some are continually meeting squalls and hurricanes, 
and others float on as uneventfully as some human 
lives. 

"I have known many famous ships in my day, and 
have heard gossip of others. One of General Grant's 
gifts from the people of San Francisco was a cane 
turned from the portion of the rudder post of the old 
ship John Jay, which was dismantled and her hulk 
burned in San Antonio creek some years since. This 
vessel is said to have conveyed Franklin to France in 
1776 as ambassador from the United States. 

"At Monterey again one may see at low tide the 
timbers of a sunken sliip — the wreck of the brig Natalie, 
the very ship on which Napoleon the Great made his 
escape from the Island of Elba, just before the final 
collapse of his empire at Waterloo. The Natalie 
brought to California in 1834 the colony of Huyas from 
their home in Mexico, to be settled on the frontiers of 
Sonoma County. They grew homesick, however, on 
arri\nng in sight of their new home, and forced the Cap- 
tain to return with them to Monterey, where the Natalie 
was wrecked as she was entering the harbor. 

"Within the Golden Gate at San Franciso, I saw 
in the year 1852 a thousand ships, few of which ever 



102 In Olde Massachusetts 

went to sea again. They were mostly old vessels, 
chartered in the East to bring flour to hungry miners, 
and were either condemned on arriving at San Fran- 
cisco, or left to decay, or to be broken up for firewood 
and old metal. Perhaps you will relish a little gossip 
about them. There was the Cadmus, which brought 
Lafayette to this country in 1824; the General Jackson 
and Balance, two ships taken by James De Wolfe's 
privateer, True-Blooded Yankee, in the war of 1814. 
The latter ship was near 100 years old. Both were 
built in Calcutta of teak timber, and the Balance had the 
same masts in her which were put in in Calcutta almost 
a century before. There was, too, the celebrated Lady 
Amherst, an English whaler of repute, belonging to 
Samuel Enderby & Sons of London, which in six con- 
secutive voyages, with an average time of thirty-four 
months each, obtained 16,000 barrels of sperm oil — 
a catch never equaled by any ship from our own ports. 
There also entered the port Thomas H. Perkins's splen- 
did clipper Nile of Boston from China, laden with 
silks, teas, and frankincense (sandalwood), seeking a 
market first among the Peruvians. There were also 
the Martha, a London packet from Nantucket in 1809; 
Montana, a French packet from New York in 1824; 
the Henry Aster, one of John Jacob Astor's famed 
Northwest fur traders to China; the Deucalion, Hi- 
bernian, and Ontario of the Liverpool packets, the 
Niantic, Goodhue & Co.'s China ship from New York, 



Ships and Sailors of Nantucket 103 

which was moved up into the center of the city, and 
was for a long time a famous hotel; the Friendship of 
Salem, once cut off by the Malays, to chastise whom 
our Government sent out the frigate Potomac under 
Commodore Downes in 1832; the Morrison, one of 
Stephen Girard's famous tea ships ; the Palladium, one 
of Thorndike's sliips of Boston, with scores of others, 
thrown aside in the scramble for gold. 

"A great many old ships went to form the stone 
blockade of Charleston, S. C, in 1862, when the Anglo- 
rebel privateers made fearful havoc. Among the in- 
teresting old ships was the Barclay, built in 1794 for 
William Rotch & Sons by George Claghorn, the same 
who built the frigate Constitution. The Barclay was gal- 
lantly cut out of Callao from under the guns of the Span- 
ish fortifications in 1813 by Commodore David Porter, 
then commanding the frigate Essex, with our famous 
Farragut at that time a midshipman under him. After 
an eventful career she was broken up at New Bedford 
in 1864. Also the ship Canada, famous in her day 
when in the Liverpool trade for making her passage 
from New York to Liverpool in from thirteen to sixteen 
days, and delivering General Jackson's messages in 
Liverpool as promptly as steamers do others in these 
days. This ship was seized by the Brazilian Govern- 
ment while ashore near Pernambuco in 1856, and has 
since been paid for, costing that Government $100,000. 

"Among ships none were fleeter or more graceful 



104 In Olde Massachusetts 

than the American clippers. With their sharp trim 
hulls and top-hamper spread and swelling to the breeze, 
they were the most beautiful of ocean racers, the pride 
and joy of the merchant's heart. The cHppers origi- 
nated in Baltimore in the war of 1812, having been con- 
structed first as privateers. After the war they were 
put in the Rio Janeiro and Valparaiso trade from that 
city. The ships Corinthian and Ann McKim were the 
most famous of this fleet, the latter once making the 
passage from Valparaiso to Baltimore in fifty-eight 
days. The Corinthian was broken up at Stonington, 
Conn., in 1847, and the McKim at San Francisco in 
1853. In 1842 Warren Delano came from China and 
built the ship Memnon in Smith & Diamond's yard, 
New York, who were famous shipbuilders in that day. 
She was the best ship I ever saw in every particular, 
and after sailing the sea for twelve years was lost in 
1854 with a cargo of 2,000,000 pounds of tea for London, 
for which she was to have had $70,000 freight. 

" Very soon the English began to build clippers, and 
then there was international rivalry and racing. Large 
space in the newspapers of the day was devoted to 
accounts of the voyages of the splendid clippers that 
plied between New York and London, New York and 
San Francisco, New York and China, and England 
and China. The Sea Witch, Capt. Robert Waterman, 
made the shortest China passage — seventy-four days 
— from Hong Kong to New York, beating his own 



Ships and Sailors of Nantucket 105 

previous time in the ship Natchez by four days. The 
Flying Claud, built by Donald McKay, at East Boston 
in 1851, made the passage from Sandy Hook light to 
San Francisco in eighty-nine days twenty-one hours — 
the shortest on record. On his return, however, Cap- 
tain Cressy beat his own record, reaching San Francisco 
in eighty-nine days nineteen hours. 

"In May, 1856, five English clippers started from 
China for a race to London. The affair excited great 
interest on both sides of the Atlantic. The ships en- 
gaged were the Ariel, 853 tons, the Fiery Cross, G89 
tons, the Taeping, 767 tons, the Taitsing, 815 tons, 
and the Sirica, 708 tons. They were laden with the 
first of the season's teas, and an additional freight of 
ten shillings per ton was promised the first ship arriv- 
ing in dock, hence the competition. 

"The Sirica, Ariel, and Taeping passed Foochow 
Bar for London on the same day. May 30. The Fiery 
Cross sailed the day before, and the Taitsing the day 
after. The next heard of them was at Angier, Straits 
of Sunda, as follows: 'Fiery Cross passed through on 
the 19th of June, the others on the 22d, all within a 
few hours of each other, running the distance from 
Foochow — 2,780 miles — in twenty-three days.' The 
next was this bit of ship news from London: 'Yester- 
day, September 21, 1856, Lloyd's agent telegraphed 
the arrival of three of the ships in the Downs. 
They are expected at Blackwell to-day. Up to late 



106 In Olde Massachusetts 

last evening no news had been received of the Fiery 
Cross or the Taitsing.' The distance, 14,060 miles, 
was run i«i ninety-nine days, an average of 141 miles 
a day, and the vessels ran almost neck and neck the 
whole passage." 



CHAPTER XV 

AN ANTI-SLAVERY PIONEER 

A NOTHER evening my friend produced an an- 
■^^*- cient, time-worn pamphlet, whose full title I 
found to read: 

"A testimony against that anti-Christian practice 
of making slaves of men, wherein it is showed to be 
contrary to the dispensation of the Law and Time of 
the Gospel, and very opposite both to Grace and 
Nature. By Elihu Coleman, printed in the year 1733." 

"I suppose it to be," he remarked, "one of the 
earliest, as well as most earnest and fearless, denuncia- 
tions of human slavery ever published. Its author, 
Elihu Coleman, was a minister of the Society of Friends 
(born on Nantucket, December, 1699, died here Janu- 
ary, 1789), and an able and fearless preacher here for 
nearly the whole of his career. Beginning with his 
day, the island continued very hostile to the institution 
to the end. The Friends were the dominant sect on 
Nantucket in those days, and their influence was 
always exerted against slavery. The famous Prince 
Boston case, you remember, made Massachusetts a 
free State, and Prince Boston was a Nantucket slave. 



108 In Olde Massachusetts 

His owner, Elisha Folger, had for some reason shipped 
him and sent him out in Mr. Rotch's whale-ship. On 
arrival home he claimed and received as his own 
Prince's share in the voyage. But in 1780, while the 
ship was absent, the Constitution of Massachusetts 
was adopted, and Mr. Rotch, on reading it, at once saw 
that it abolished slavery; at least he determined to 
make a test case of it. Pretty soon Prince's ship came 
in, and Mr. Folger applied for his slave's 'voyage.' 
'Thee has no voyage here,' said Mr. Rotch calmly, 
making Folger as hot as a South Carolinian — so wroth 
that he sued in the courts, and a famous case it became; 
he lost his suit, and not only Prince Boston, but 4,700 
other slaves in Massachusetts, were set free. 

"We had an exciting fugitive slave case in 1822. 
There were several runaway slaves from Virginia living 
here and at New Bedford at the time, supporting them- 
selves and their families, owning little freehold proper- 
ties, when suddenly one Camillus GriflBth appeared 
and demanded their surrender as escaped slaves of 
certain parties living near Alexandria, Va. Griffith in 
his sworn statement before the court gives so clear and 
succinct a statement of the proceedings at Nantucket 
that I quote him: 

"'On my arrival at Boston,' he says, 'I addressed a 
respectful memorial to Judge Davis of the United 
States District Court, enumerating the slaves I was in 
pursuit of, and praying him to grant a process for their 



An Anti-Slavery Pioneer 109 

apprehension. Being unsuccessful in this respect from 
the defect in the law of 1793, I requested Judge Davis 
to state his objections, which you will find on the back 
of the memorial. I then appealed to Colonel Harris, the 
Marshal of Massachusetts, for one of his deputies, and 
proceeded to the Island of Nantucket, where we found 
the family of negroes belonging to Mr. David Ricketts, 
and were in the act of removing them when a large 
assemblage of persons collected round the house, and 
seemed to set us at defiance. I remonstrated with 
them on the course they were pursuing, and stated to 
some of the leading men in the mob that I had arrested 
these slaves under a law of the United States; and to 
satisfy the people of Nantucket that the course we were 
pursuing was legal, we had brought the Deputy Marshal 
with us. A man calling himself Francis G. Macy 
insisted that if we had any authority it should be pro- 
duced, and as he seemed to have the most influence 
with the mob, I produced the power of attorney of Mr. 
Ricketts. Before I commenced reading it I placed 
Mr. Taylor, with two men, at the back part of the house, 
to prevent the negroes from escaping. Mr. Taylor 
did not remain there long. The threats of the mob 
alarmed him, and on his retiring to join me in the 
front part of the house, I was informed that Thomas 
Mackerel Macy put his Quaker coat and hat on George, 
and assisted him and his wife and children out of the 
window and carried them off to a place of greater 



110 In Olde Massachusetts 

security. While these things were going on, and I 
was engaged with the party in front of the house, one 
man, Sylvenus Macy, observed that the power of attor- 
ney of Ricketts might be a forgery, and afterwards said 
there was no doubt that it was a forgery, and also 
observed : " We were not in Virginia now, but in Yankee 
town — that they wanted those colored people to man 
their whale ship and would not suffer them to be carried 
back to bondage." He was proceeding in this manner 
and with other abusive language when the arrival of 
Sig. Folger was announced, who I understood had 
been sent for. His first inquiry was where the slaves 
were, and F. G. Macy answered, "We have them in our 
possession and they are now in the house." Folger 
then observed to me that the laws of this State did not 
recognize any persons as slaves, and if I attempted to 
molest these people or remove them, he should consider 
it his duty as a magistrate to arrest me and my party. 
I then informed Mr. Folger that I had arrested these 
people as slaves, who had run away from a gentleman 
in Virginia, and that the law of the United States 
authorized the arrest, and called upon him as a magis- 
trate to suppress the mob, and allow us to bring the 
negroes before him or suffer Mr. Bass, the Deputy 
Marshal, to take them to Boston before Judge Davis 
for trial. I also asked Mr. Folger if he did not con- 
sider the State laws of Massachusetts subordinate to 
the laws of the United States. His answer was "No," 



An Anti-Slavery Pioneer 111 

and that if we attempted to molest these people any 
further, he would put us all in jail.' 

"Remark the manliness and pure grit of those old 
magistrates and freemen, defying the power of the 
whole national Government, then wielded by slave- 
holders, for the protection of the weak and helpless, 
and driving the spoiler off without his prey — for 
Griffith, finding the men of Nantucket so defiant and 
threatening, relinquished his quest and set sail for 
New Bedford. There he fell into more desperate 
straits at the hands of those sturdy Quakers, Thomas 
Rotch and William W. Swain, being thrown into 
prison, and after many hardships missing his object as 
he had in Nantucket." 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SEA FIGHT OFF 1VL\DDEQUECHAM 

" TT was out there it happened, one fine October morn- 
"^ ing in 1814," said our friend, pointing out to sea. 
We had had a glorious ride that September afternoon 
and now drew rein on the summit of one of the round- 
topped hills looking down on Maddequecham Pond, 
and on the racing surf thundering beyond. 

"That war of 181*2," he continued, "was pretty 
much all a sea fight, and it does my heart good to recall 
now and then how handsomely we whipped John Bull 
on his own ground. There were several pretty sea- 
fights off our eastern coast in that war. The Cojisii- 
tution and Gnerriere off the St. Lawrence, and the 
Enterprise and Boxer off Portland harbor, will at once 
recur to you, but here on the south side, perhaps four 
miles from town, as gallant an action as any of them 
was fought, of which no mention whatever is made in 
the books. Cooper, even, in his ' Naval History,' has no 
account of it. 

" One mellow October day of that year — 1814 — 
the town was startled by the news that an American 
privateer brig was off the south shore with a large 



The Sea Fight off Maddequecham 113 

British frigate in pursuit, and scores of people streamed 
over the downs to watch the chase and possible battle. 
They saw not only the privateer, but a large ship, her 
prize, lying abreast of Maddequecham Pond, and away 
off to the southwest a large frigate in sight, hull down 
and nearly becalmed in the light breeze playing from 
northward. A concise account of the affair and of the 
events preceding it is given in the marine columns of 
the Boston Daily Advertiser of October 17, 1814, evi- 
dently taken from the privateer's log-book. I quote: 
'July 4. Sailed from Cherbourg . . . Made in all 
fifteen captures, many of them in the British and Irish 
channels; burnt and scuttled most of them. Among 
others, September 6, captured ship Douglas, of and 
for Liverpool from Demerara, cargo, rum, sugar, cotton, 
and coffee, 420 tons, in latitude 41^°, longitude 45°. 
Kept company with the Douglas, made Nantucket 9th 
inst., in company. On the 11th, Nantucket bearing 
N. about a quarter of a mile distant, discovered a frigate 
off Gay Head, which gave chase and came up with a 
fresh breeze, while we were becalmed. At three p.m. 
we got the breeze and took the Douglas in tow, the 
frigate then about four leagues from us. At sunset it 
died away calm. At seven p.m. was obliged to come 
to anchor, and supposing the frigate would send her 
boats to attempt to capture us, prepared accordingly. 
At eight P.M. signal was made from the prize that 
the boats were coming. Soon after discovered them. 



114 In Olde Massachusetts 

five in number, and in a few minutes they were 
alongside.' 

" The attacking boats carried 104 men, to whom the 
Prince of Ncujchatcl could oppose but 38. A launch 
containing 48 men was sunk by the privateer's first fire, 
and only 2 men were saved. Two boats' crews at- 
tempted to board at the bows, but were swept away, 
all except the leader, the Second Lieutenant of the 
Endymion, who walked the whole length of the privateer 
amid his foes unrecognized, and jumped through the 
port into liis own boat. Then the privateer's men 
poured their fire into the boats alongside. In twenty 
minutes the fight was over. Three boats drifted away 
from the brig, every man killed. The other was cap- 
tured, and of her thirty-sLx men eight were found to 
be killed, twenty wounded, and only eight unhurt. 
The privateer, too, had suffered. Of her thirty-eight 
men six were killed and twenty-one wounded. The 
dead were buried on shore; the wounded were brought 
to town, and taken to Mr. Edward Dixon's on Cross 
Wharf, and to Obed Pinkham's house on Broad Street, 
where our women attended them. I remember steal- 
ing in with the surgeons when they came, and watching, 
with eyes as big as saucers, the bullets extracted from 
the wounds. 

"A day or two later a launch came up the harbor 
filled with officers in their grand uniforms, the crew 
pulling with man-of-war precision, sent from the En- 



The Sea Fight oflf Maddequecham 115 

dymion to look after her wounded people. I happened 
to be in the room when I heard them coming up the 
narrow stairs, their scabbards clanking, and fled with 
the women to the pantry, scared at such company. I 
gained courage to peep out before they departed, how- 
ever, and one rolled this bullet to me across the floor, 
and told me to keep it as a memento of the fight. It 
was a sad affair for the Endymion — her First Lieu- 
tenant and a master's mate killed, the Third Lieutenant, 
two master's mates, and one midshipman wounded, 
33 men killed, 37 wounded, and 30 prisoners. Well 
might her Captain — Hope — complain that he had 
suffered as badly as though engaged with a frigate of 
equal calibre. 

" Ordronaux, the little French Captain of the Neuf- 
chdtel, seems to have been a veritable Hotspur. He 
declared that if he could get the men to man liis brig, 
he would take the Endymion in the cove where she lay. 
No doubt he had the requisite pluck, but it would have 
been foolhardy, unless by surprise, for the Endymion 
was a forty-gun frigate with a broadside of twenty- fours, 
and notwithstanding her severe losses had quite men 
enough left to man her batteries. This old frigate, 
the Endymion, well deserves to be classed among the 
historic ships of the British Navy. Three months 
later, January 15, 1815, she sustained a desperate fight 
with the President, frigate. Commodore Decatur, off 
Sandy Hook. She got the worst of it, the President 



116 In Olde Massachusetts 

being a heavier ship, and probably would have been 
obliged to strike her colors but for the arrival of her 
consorts, when the President was captured and both 
ships were sent to Bermuda. Before reaching that 
port, however, both were dismasted in a gale, and the 
Endymion came near foundering, being obliged to 
throw overboard all her upper-deck guns." 



CHAPTER XVII 

A TYPICAL NANTUCKET MERCHANT 

/^^NE evening, calling on my friend, I found him 
^-^ poring over a mouldy account-book, among 
whose dates as he turned the leaves I caught that of 
1765. "It came from the counting-room of William 
Rotch," said he, "a merchant deserving of more re- 
membrance than he is likely to receive from this genera- 
tion. We had great men in those days and down to 
1849-50, men whose services in creating and extend- 
ing American commerce cannot be too highly com- 
mended. The Rotches, Coffins, and Mitchells were 
giants of the former time, and the Starbucks, Macys, 
Folgers, and Gardners of the latter. But of all, William 
Rotch was easily chief. I consider him the greatest 
merchant of colonial days. He was of Quaker parent- 
age, born here October 4, 1734, and entered about 
1754 his father's West India business, and before 1773 
founded with his brothers Joseph and Francis the house 
of Joseph Rotch's Sons, with branches in New Bedford 
and London, and an extensive trade with the other 
colonies, the West Indies, and the mother country. 
"The commodity most largely dealt in by the firm 



118 In Olde Massachusetts 

was whale oil; it had many vessels in the whale fishery, 
and the product shipped to England found a ready 
market there. In return, the vessels brought all man- 
ner of commodities, which the firm distributed in its 
small, swift-sailing schooners to the Southern colonies 
and the West Indies. It is a curious fact that in due 
process of this trade the peace-loving Quakers became 
active agents in precipitating a frightful and bloody 
struggle. In this old book in my hand, under date of 
1773, occurs this entry: 'Invoice of 182 casks white 
sperm oil shipped by William Rotch, on board the 
ship, Dartmouth, Joseph Rotch, master, for Lon- 
don, on account and risk of the shipper, and goes con- 
signed to Champion, Dickinson & Co., merchants 
there. This vessel was one of those from which the 
tea was emptied into Boston harbor a few months 
later.' On reaching London with this cargo she, with 
the Beaver, also owned by the Rotches, and a tliird 
ship, the Eleanor, was chartered by the East India 
Company to convey to Boston the objectionable teas 
which led to the famous tea-party in Boston harbor 
in December, 1773. 

"When the war finally came, the people looked to 
Mr. Rotch as the leading man of the island for counsel 
and protection. He at once declared for a strict neu- 
trality as being not only good policy, but in accordance 
with the principles of the Friends, which the majority 
of the islanders professed. But this course seemed to 



A Typical Nantucket Merchant 119 

arouse the ill-will of both parties, and the little com- 
munity was soon harassed with depredations from the 
armed vessels of the British and Tories on the one hand 
and of the patriots on the other. In his autobiography, 
which I have here, written at the age of eighty, he gives 
a graphic account of one of these Tory descents. On 
another occasion several sloops of war and a number 
of transports were in sight of the island three days, 
intending to make a descent upon it. 'Nothing short 
of the interposition of Divine Providence preserved us 
from apparent ruin,' says Mr. Rotch. 'They were in 
sight of us in the day time three days near Cape Poge 
(Martha's Vineyard). They got under way three 
mornings successively, and stood for the island with a 
fair wind, which each morning came round against 
them, and the tide too came round against them, which 
obliged them to return to their anchorage still in view 
of us. Before they could make the fourth attempt, 
orders came for their return to New York for some 
other expedition. A solemn time indeed it was to us. 
Messengers were arriving one after another, and twice 
I was called up in the night with the disagreeable in- 
formation that they were at hand.' 

" Twice he visited the British camp — once at New- 
port, and once at New York — to induce the British 
Commander to grant the island a protection from 
British cruisers and armed vessels. He was successful 
in both cases, but for the act was haled before a com- 



120 In Olde Massachusetts 

mittee of the General Court of Massachusetts on a 
charge of treason — a law having passed that body 
making it high treason for any person to visit a British 
port without its consent. Mr. Rotch was indicted be- 
fore that tribunal, but not found guilty, and the charge 
was finally dropped. 

"A mission to Congress, near the close of the war, 
for a permit to allow the whahng vessels of Nantucket 
to go out, in which he was successful after a five weeks' 
struggle, completed the merchant's efforts on behalf 
of Nantucket during the war. At the close of the 
struggle he found all the conditions of trade and in- 
dustry changed. The chief product and staple of trade 
of Nantucket had been whale oil. But now England, 
the chief oil market of the world, in revenge for the loss 
of her colonies, laid a duty of eighteen pounds per ton 
on all oil brought to her market by aliens. In conse- 
quence Nantucket oil, that had sold at tliirty pounds 
before the war, now dropped to seventeen. It cost 
twenty-five pounds to produce it, as the merchants and 
ship-owners found after a few years' trial, and Mr. 
Rotch decided to remove to England and prosecute 
the fishery from there. Not meeting with much en- 
couragement from the English Court, he crossed to 
France, and under the protection of Louis XVI. and a 
bounty from the Government established his son Ben- 
jamin in the fishery at Dunkirk. He then returned 
to Nantucket, but four years later, in 1790, voyaged 



A Typical Nantucket Merchant 121 

with his family to Dunkirk, called thither by business 
interests. 

"During this second visit to France he figured in an 
episode of historical importance from the light which it 
threw on some of the actors in the French revolution. 
The revolution had been two years in progress when 
early in 1791 he, with his son Benjamin and John 
Marsillac, appeared before the French National As- 
sembly at Paris to present a petition to that body for 
certain privileges and exemptions connected with their 
religious principles. They asked, first, that they might 
not be compelled to take arms and kill men under any 
pretense; second, that their simple registers of births, 
marriages, and deaths might be deemed sufficient to 
legalize their marriages and births, and authenticate 
their deaths, and third, that they might be exempted 
from the taking of oaths. Mirabeau was President of 
the Assembly, and previous notice that this 'Quaker 
petition ' was to be presented had drawn at the appointed 
hour every member in town and more spectators to the 
galleries than could be accommodated. Brissot de War- 
ville, the traveler, and several other members came to 
the petitioners' lodgings to accompany them to the 
chamber. 'But,' said one, as they were about setting 
out, 'you have no cockades; you must put them on.' 
* No,' said the Quaker, ' we cannot ; it is contrary to 
our principles to wear a distinguishing badge.' ' But,' 
they urged, ' it is required by law, to prevent distinctions. 



122 In Olde Massachusetts 

that people may not be abused, for their lives are in 
danger without them'; referring to the mob through 
which it was necessary to pass to gain the doors of the 
Assembly. Rotch and his friends replied calmly that 
they could not do it, that they must go as they were and 
submit to what might befall them. 'We set out,' says 
Mr. Rotch, ' with no small apprehension, but we trusted 
in that power which can turn the hearts of men as a 
watercourse is turned.' You can fancy the spectacle 
these drab-coated disciples of peace presented as they 
pushed through the mob that then governed Paris. 

" ' We passed through the great concourse,' Mr. 
Rotch continues, 'without interruption and reached 
the waiting-room of the Assembly. A messenger in- 
formed the President, and we were immediately called 
to the bar. John Marsillac read the petition with 
Brissot at his elbow to correct him in his emphasis, 
which he frequently did, unperceived, I believe, by all 
except ourselves. At the close of every subject there 
was a general clapping of hands, the officers endeavor- 
ing to hush them. The hushing, I thought, was hissing, 
from my ignorance of the language, and apprehended 
all was going wrong until better informed. After the 
reading was concluded Mirabeau rose. "Quakers," 
said he, "who have fled from persecutors and tyrants 
cannot but address with confidence the legislators who 
have for the first time in France made the rights of man- 
kind the basis of law, and France now reformed, France 



A Typical Nantucket Merchant 123 

in the bosom of peace, wliich she will always consider 
herself bound to revere, and which she wishes to all 
nations, may become another happy Pennsylvania. As 
a system of philanthropy we admire your principles. 
They remind us that the origin of every society was a 
family united by its manners, its affections, and its 
wants, and doubtless those would be the most sublime 
institutions wliich would renew the human race, and 
bring them back this primitive and virtuous original. 
The examination of your principles no longer concerns 
us. We have decided on that point. There is a kind 
of property no man would put into the common stock, 
the emotions of his soul, the freedom of his thought. 
In this sacred domain man is placed in a hierarchy far 
above the social state. As a citizen he must adopt a 
form of government, but as a thinking being the uni- 
verse is his country. As principles of religion your 
doctrines will not be the subject of our deliberations. 
The relation of every man to the Supreme Being is 
independent of all political institutions. Between God 
and the heart of man, what Government would dare to 
interfere .^ As civil maxims, your claims must be sub- 
mitted to the discussions of the legislative body. We 
will examine whether the forms you observe in order to 
certify births and marriages be sufficient to authenticate 
those descents which the divisions of property, inde- 
pendent of good manners, render indispensable. We 
will consider whether a declaration subject to the penal- 



124 In Olde Massachusetts 

ties against false witnesses and perjury, be not, in fact, 
an oath. Worthy citizens, you have already taken that 
civic oath which every man deserving of freedom has 
thought a privilege rather than a duty. You have not 
taken God to witness, but you have appealed to your 
consciences; and is not a pure conscience a heaven 
without a cloud ? Is not that part of a man a ray of 
divinity ? You also say that one of your religious tenets 
forbids you to take up arms or to kill a man under any 
pretense whatever. It is certainly a noble philosophical 
principle which thus does a kind of homage to humanity, 
but consider well whether defense of yourselves and 
your equals be not also a religious duty. You would 
otherwise be overpowered by tyrants. Since we have 
procured liberty for you and for ourselves, why should 
you refuse to preserve it ? Had your brethren in Penn- 
sylvania been less remote from the savages, would they 
have suffered their wives, their children, their parents, 
to be massacred rather than resist ? And are not stupid 
tyrants and ferocious conquerors savages ? The Assem- 
bly in its wisdom will consider all your requests, but 
whenever I meet a Quaker I will say, 'My brother, if 
thou hast a right to be free, thou hast the right to pre- 
vent any one from making thee a slave. As thou lovest 
a fellow-creature, suffer not a tyrant to destroy him ; it 
would be killing him thyself. Thou desirest peace, but 
consider, weakness invites war. General resistance 
would prove an universal peace."" 



A Typical Nantucket Merchant 125 

"Many adventures and hair-breadth escapes were 
met with by the staid Friends in that time of terror, not 
a few of them caused by the steadfastness with which 
they clung to their religious convictions and observances. 
Mr. Rotch returned to America in 1794, and eventually 
settled in New Bedford, dying in 1828 at the age of 
ninety-four." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE SEA KINGS OF NANTUCKET 

" TDURKE has described them," remarked my friend 
-^-' on another evening, recurring to his favorite 
topic, the sea. "The men I have been thinking of all 
day — the sea captains of Nantucket. You remember 
that famous speech of his before Parliament — one of 
his best — in which he pleaded the cause of the Ameri- 
can Colonies. 

" Pass by the other parts," he says, " and look at the 
manner in which the people of New England have of 
late carried on the whale fishery. While we follow 
them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold 
them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of 
Hudson Bay and Davis Straits — while we are looking 
for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they 
have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold — 
that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the 
frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which 
seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp 
of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place 
in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the 
equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 127 

accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that 
while some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon 
on the coast of Africa, others pursue their gigantic game 
along the coast of Brazil. No sea but is vexed by their 
fisheries; no climate that is not witness to their toils. 
Neither the perseverance of Holland nor the activity 
of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of Eng- 
lish enterprise, ever carried tliis most perilous mode of 
hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed 
by this recent people — a people who are still, as it 
were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the 
bone of manhood." 

That refers exclusively to Nantucket men, for they 
were the only ones who at that day had shown such 
enterprise in the whale fishery. 

" There were a lot of splendid shipmasters just pass- 
ing off the stage when I was a boy, and I must say they 
seemed to me in character, enterprise, and lofty de- 
meanor fully equal to all I had heard related of their 
daring and enterprise. Knights-errant of the world 
they were, roaming from zone to zone and pole to pole, 
discovering new islands, mapping out unknown seas, 
grappling the hugest game, meeting and mingling with 
all peoples, you can imagine the stories they told, and 
of their fascination for a boy of twelve. I never forgot 
any, but the China and India voyages interested me 
most, especially those to Pondicherry, a remote port 
in India belonging to the French. I suppose because 



128 In Olde Massachusetts 

they recalled the exploits of Hastings and the great 
Clive. I am in the mood for speaking briefly of a few. 
"The greatest family of island shipmasters was the 
Wests. They were descended in part from the noble 
Ichabod Paddock, who removed to Nantucket late in 
1600, by invitation, to teach the people how to catch 
whales. Charles West married a descendant of this 
great whaleman. They had a son Stephen, who was 
master of a ship as early as 1802. Stephen was one of 
the most successful of our shipmasters. He was a 
bosom friend of the great merchant Jacob Barker; they 
were boys together; in fact, Jacob has told me that 
Captain West gave him his first start in life. I saw the 
former in 1850, in his eighty-fifth year, at the Captain's 
death-bed, asking him what he could do for him in such 
a tender, pathetic spirit that I forgave Mr. Barker all 
he had omitted to do for his friend in life. In 1790 
Captain West commenced his career as a South sea 
whale fisherman, and continued in it until 1798, when 
the French troubles compelled its suspension. In 1800, 
however, he was away as First Lieutenant of the Oneida, 
a twenty-gun ship, bound on a voyage to China, via 
Cape Horn and the Marquesas Islands, where she 
expected to lay in her cargo of seal skins. The Oneida 
was absent seventeen months, and returned with a rich 
cargo of teas, silks, and nankeens, so profitable that it 
was talked of in the counting-rooms of all our ports. 
Whaling was just then reviving. The ship John Jay, 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 129 

then in the China trade, was purchased, and Mr. West 
went out in her as first officer on a voyage to Brazil 
Banks. On his return, Seth Russell & Sons of New 
Bedford oflFered him command of the Dolphin, in 
which he sailed on a whaling voyage to the South Seas. 
She registered but 130 tons, and was probably the 
smallest vessel that ever sailed on such a voyage. 

"Well out on the whaling grounds, the young Cap- 
tain discovered that his vessel was leaking and was also 
very defective in her upper works. Most commanders 
would have come home. He put into Delgoa Bay, on 
the coast of Africa, where he found a number of his 
townsmen in command of English, French, and Ameri- 
can ships. He called to his aid the carpenters and 
smiths of these ships, went into the woods and cut 
timbers, repaired his ship, and refastened her through- 
out. Then they went for a cruise off the Cape of Good 
Hope, fell in with schools of whales, filled the ship in 
six weeks, and were home full, the first ship of the sea- 
son. Captain West's reputation was now assured. In 
the ship Martha he made two voyages to the Brazil 
Banks and to Patagonia, taking upwards of 1,850 
barrels of sperm oil each time, but losing the last — 
captured by the English ship Nimrod, in the war of 
1812. On the return of peace he made three seven 
months' voyages in his old ship Martha, returning full 
each time. Then the Liverpool packet Pacific was 
bought, and in her in a seven months' voyage he took 



130 In Olde Massachusetts 

2,400 barrels of oil. He made a second voyage with 
like results. He then performed his last voyage in the 
South America, taking 700 barrels, and retired from 
the sea, having brought 25,000 barrels of oil into port. 
He died in 1859, nearly eighty-five years of age. 

"The next son, Paul, was also a successful ship- 
master, first sailing for Nantucket merchants and then 
in English employ. His brother, Silas, was noted for 
an exploit that was narrated in every cabin and fore- 
castle throughout the fleet. He was in command of the 
London whaleship Indian, and when oflf the Gallipagos 
Islands discovered a school of ten or twelve 'bull 
whales.' Then there was a sound of piping by day, the 
boats were lowered, and Captain West was soon in 
the midst of the monsters, never slacking his labors till 
the last was killed. When the ship worked up there 
were ten whales w^aiting to be taken alongside. I was 
telling this story years afterwards in one of our public 
resorts, several old masters being present, when one, 
then past his eightieth birthday, remarked : ' The gentle- 
man has told the truth of the matter; I was second mate 
of the ship Lion, then in company, and saw it done.' 
Capt. Silas West was killed by a sperm whale in the 
Pacific Ocean. 

" Capt. Benjamin Worth was another of those heroic 
masters. A volume might have been made of his ex- 
ploits and adventures. Once he told me of a little 
adventure that befell him on the coast of New Zealand, 




■r. ^ 



15 ^ 






The Sea Kings of Nantucket 131 

showing how a trivial circumstance may arrest the 
course of events and deUver from the jaws of destruc- 
tion. They were in a deep bay on that coast when a 
terrible gale overtook them. With close-reefed main 
topsail and forctop-mast stays'l set — all they could 
carry — they tried to beat out, but in vain; the ship 
was urged to leeward by the tempest on towards the 
foaming breakers and black, jagged rocks. Captain 
and mate consulted, and decided to run the ship on 
shore while it was day so that they could pick out a 
safe place to land. The negroes on board — and most 
Nantucket ships carried more or less of those people — 
on hearing the order to put up the helm, and seeing the 
ship headed towards shore, crowded around the Cap- 
tain and urged him to try once more for the open sea, 
'for,' said they, 'if we escape to shore here, we shall 
surely be eaten, for the natives are cannibals.' They 
were well aware that the New Zealanders much pre- 
ferred negro flesh as a diet to that of white men. 
Touched by their distress, the Captain decided to make 
another attempt to gain sea room. He brought the 
ship to the wind again, and set fore and mizzen tops'l, 
let out a reef in each of the others, and awaited the 
result. ' You should have seen the tense, pale faces of 
the men,' he used to say, ' and the ship dancing like a 
sea-bird on the waves, with the wind howling through 
her cordage like a legion of devils, and the boiling cal- 
dron on her lee. But the sails held, the wind eased up 



132 In Olde Massachusetts 

a point or two, and we flew like a bird past the head- 
land, and out to sea.' They made Sydney, New South 
Wales, and there Captain Worth displayed the qualities 
of a great commander by bringing victory out of dis- 
aster. The ship was a mere wreck — boats and try- 
works gone, cabin gangway splintered, part of the deck 
torn up, and not a barrel of oil yet obtained ; but Worth, 
not disheartened, built boats, repaired his ship, made 
grass rope, recruited stores, and put to sea, and in 
fifteen months was at Nantucket Bar, full. That shows 
the spirit of a Nantucket sea-king. Sailors will hardly 
believe it; but I had it from his own lips. This Cap- 
tain Worth, by the way, was grandfather to Secretary 
Folger's wife. He was an elegant sailor and com- 
mander, as was his son, who sailed from England the 
ships Griffen and Rochester. 

" Capt. David Baxter, one of Mr. Rotch's captains, 
once gave his owner a great surprise. When in Eng- 
land, just before the war of 1812, Mr. Rotch engaged 
him for a passage to the Pacific for sperm oil. ' When 
thou art full and on thy way home,' said he, 'call at 
St. Helena, and I will there have a letter directing thee 
how to proceed from that point.' Everything drew 
alow and aloft on the passage out, and when the good 
ship, the Charles y reached the coast of Peru she found 
whales so plentiful and had such luck in striking them 
that she was full before the men had thought of home; 
then favoring winds swept her speedily back, and she 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 133 

called at St. Helena for the letter before Mr. Rotcli 
had thought of her leaving her cruising-ground. Of 
course, there was no letter of advice, and Captain 
Baxter stood away for England, knowing too much 
to attempt New Bedford, with all his Majesty's cruisers 
on the lookout for American ships. He took a pilot 
in the channel, who, one morning, before Mr. Rotch 
had arisen, anchored the Charles, with her bowsprit 
almost in the bow windows of his palatial residence 
on the Thames. Then Captain Baxter went ashore. 
Arrived at Mr. Rotch's house, the great merchant came 
into the reception-room in slippers and dressing-gown 
and was vastly alarmed to meet his master. 'Why, 
Baxter,' said he, ' what has happened to thee ? Has 
thee become a wreck, or what has happened ? ' sup- 
posing he had made no voyage. But when the Cap- 
tain announced the Charles as full of sperm oil, worth 
an enormous number of guineas, Mr. Rotch was im- 
mensely relieved, and heartily congratulating him, 
made him stay to breakfast. It was a great surprise 
to the old Quaker. I think the time was only about 
eighteen months — the usual absence being three 
years. Baxter was a man of untiring force in all his 
fine voyages. I have heard him relate details of them 
often. He was uncle to Sir Francis Baxter, of New 
Zealand memory. 

"Let me give you an instance of the strength and 
nerve of another of our Nantucket sea-kings, Capt. 



134 In Olde Massachusetts 

Obed Fitch. He went, as second mate of that famous 
ship the Maria, to the east coast of Africa, George G. 
Hussey being commander, and Micajah Gardner first 
officer. Approaching the African coast, near where 
Riley and Paddock, two of our best captains, had been 
disastrously wrecked, the man on the forecastle re- 
ported 'something looking strange to him ahead.' 
Fitch, who had the deck, walked forward, and peering 
under the foresail, at once discovered the land looking 
wliite. Quick as a flash, without a word or order to 
any one, he sprang to the quarter deck and put down 
the helm — hard down to the rail, then springing to 
the yards, swung them around with his powerful arms 
as quickly as though all hands had been at the halliards, 
thus putting the ship about and on the opposite tack; 
then, pausing to look over her side, he saw the mud 
coming up, and sea-drift, showing that her keel had 
scraped the bottom. When the ship was safe, Captain 
Hussey appeared in the gangway with Mr. Gardner, 
and took Mr. Fitch's statement. Next morning at the 
breakfast-table Captain Hussey said playfully: 'Mr. 
Gardner, why didn't you take the deck last night?' 
' Why, sir,' said Mr. Gardner, ' I saw Mr. Fitch had it, 
and that no man was safe around him. I saw he was 
in earnest.' 

" Captain Fitch was a fine, majestic figure, over six 
feet tall, muscular, strong-limbed, his arms when in 
motion plainly showing his power. It is said that once 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 135 

while bringing a new ship home they wanted water 
from alongside, and there being no bucket, he seized a 
barrel, and letting it down drew it up full as easily as 
an ordinary seaman would a bucket. 

" Capt. AYilliam Mooers of the ship Maria was Mr, 
Rotch's favorite captain. I heard a story once illus- 
trating his spirit and decision of character. He was 
making a voyage to France in command of the Maria, 
Mr. Rotch being a passenger. We were at war with 
England at the time, and Captain INIooers had begged 
to be permitted to arm liis ship ere setting out, but the 
Quaker merchant said there must be no fighting on 
his vessels. A few days out a cruiser discovered them 
and gave chase. She drew so near that the balls began 
to whistle about, and Mr. Rotch, horrified at the sound 
of strife, rushed on deck and ordered Captain Mooers 
to strike his flag. 'Mr. Rotch,' said Captain Mooers, 
*go below; I have the deck,' and he held on his course. 
At the same moment the breeze freshened, and the 
Maria s wide spread of canvas enabled her to take 
herself out of harm's way. It is not on record that Mr. 
Rotch ever disciplined his captain for this cavalier dis- 
regard of orders. 

" It is something, is it not, to have talked with a man 
who has been in the whale's mouth.' That man was 
Capt. Edmund Gardner, a descendant of John Swain, 
Jr., the first white male child born on Nantucket. He 
began his sea life in 1801, in the ship Union, Grafton 



136 In Olde Massachusetts 

Gardner, commander, and succeeded to the Captaincy 
in 1807, at the same time sailing to the Pacific on a 
whaHng voyage. Twenty days out a huge sperm whale 
struck the ship, and she immediately sank. Captain 
and crew escaping in their three whale-boats, in which, 
after many adventures, they safely reached the Azores. 
There Captain Gardner found another ship, and in 
her made a noble sperm-whale voyage. In 1816, while 
on another voyage in the same ship, on the Peruvian 
coast, in an encounter with a sperm whale, his boat 
was knocked into splinters, and he was precipitated 
into the monster's mouth. The horrible jaws closed 
on him, then opened and cast him out. The mate's 
boat took him up for dead. One hand was gone, and 
there was an indentation in his head deep enough to 
hold an egg. The mate made all sail for the port of 
Paita, in Peru, where they soon arrived. It being the 
hot season there, the doctor said the wounded man 
must be taken up into the mountains, where the cool 
breezes would serve to restore him. This was actually 
accomplished. He regained his ship, completed his 
voyage, and arrived home in New Bedford in 1817, to 
the great joy of his owners, the Rotches and Rodmans. 
"Reuben R. Pinkham was another of our great 
masters. An anecdote of him is well worth repeating. 
In 1833 the United States frigate Potomac, Com- 
modore John Downes in command, was crossing 
the North Pacific on her voyage round the world. 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 137 

Reuben R. Pinkham was her third Heutenant. One 
day, near sunset, Pinkham had the watch, and the 
Commodore was walking the deck. The wind, which 
before was fresh, had increased to a gale, topgallant 
sails were handed down, topsails reefed, and the spanker 
brailed up, when all at once Pinkham gave the order: 
'Man the weather head braces, weather main brace, 
weather main topsail brace, lee crojeck (crossjack) 
braces.' 'What is that for, Mr. Pinkham.?' asked the 
Commodore. 'We shall have the wind out here in a 
moment, sir,' said Pinkham, stretching his arm out 
and pointing to leeward. With that the Commodore 
ran over to the lee rail and looked anxiously out in the 
direction indicated. Presently he returned and said: 
'I see no signs of it, Mr. Pinkham; let the men leave 
the braces.' With that a number of the crew dropped 
the ropes, but on Pinkham's calling out ' Keep hold of 
those braces, every man of you!' they resumed their 
grasp. The Commodore's face flushed with anger to 
find his directions thus disregarded, and he called out 
in a peremptory tone, 'Let the men leave the braces, 
sir!' Again the crew dropped the ropes, when Pink- 
ham, shaking his trumpet at them, exclaimed, 'Don't 
any of you dare to let go of those ropes!' At that 
moment the wind did not die away, but stopped, and 
the sails flapped against the masts. Raising the 
trumpet to his lips, Pinkham shouted, 'Haul taut,' 
and the ponderous yards swung to a reversed direction. 



138 In Olde Massachusetts 

This was hardly done when the wind shot out of the 
opposite quarter and struck the ship hke a sledge- 
hammer. She bent over before it, but shaking the 
spray from her bows dashed forward unharmed. 
Commodore Downes said not a word, but rushed into 
his cabin, and presently the orderly came up to Mr. 
Pinkham and said the Commodore wished him to send 
to the first lieutenant to relieve him for a few minutes, 
as he wished to see him in the cabin. Enterins: the 
cabin, Pinkham found the Commodore seated by a 
table with a decanter of wine and two wine-glasses 
before him. Pushing one of the latter towards his 
visitor, he said: 'Take a glass of wine, Mr. Pinkham. 
Mr. Pinkham, I consider myself indebted to you for 
my own life, and for the lives of all on board this ship. 
Had you not hauled the yards just when you did, and 
had the wind found the ship unprepared, and taken 
the sails aback, not all the power on earth could have 
moved the yards, and the ship would have gone down 
stern foremost. But I tell you frankly that had the 
wind not come out as you predicted, I would have put 
you under arrest in two minutes.' 'Commodore 
Downes,' replied Lieutenant Pinkham, 'I did not in- 
tend any disrespect, and I should be sorry if you thought 
I did, but I have been in these seas before, and am 
familiar with these sudden changes of wind. I saw 
undoubted indications of such change then, and knew 
that I had no time for explanation.' 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 139 

"Benjamin Hussey was another of our great cap- 
tains — the first to enter the Falkland Isles in a whaler 
— my journals say in January, 1785. Before that 
date he was in Greenland, again off the African coast 
whaling. When in France Napoleon confiscated his 
entire property. Then he came to Nantucket, and the 
people engaged him to inoculate us boys — that was 
in 1815. I shall never forget his huge head; when he 
took off his broad beaver I could think of nothing but 
a half-bushel of brains. In 1817 he returned to France 
and regained some of his property. With that and 
the assistance of some of my family, he fitted out from 
Dunkirk a whaler for the Greenland fishery, where he 
arrived all safe, but unfortunately soon got entangled 
in the icebergs. He was at the wheel, steering the 
vessel, when the ice crushed against the rudder, and 
threw him over the wheel, breaking his ribs, from 
which wounds he soon died. May, 1820, then eighty 
years and five months old. 

" It was men of this fiber that William Rotch had in 
mind when he made his famous reply to George III. 
Rotch asked for the admission of the Nantucket whale 
ships and their cargoes to England free of duty. ' And 
what wilt thou give me in return ? ' asked his Majesty. 
'We will give thee and thy people the young men of my 
native island,' replied the intrepid Quaker, and I think 
the return would have balanced the concession. 

" I could fill a volume with anecdotes, but these will 



140 In Olde Massachusetts 

suflfice to indicate the character of the men of Nan- 
tucket. Remember, too, that I have mentioned but 
few of the noble men who have sailed from our port 
and carried its fame to the remotest ports. I was re- 
calling yesterday the names of some of the more notable 
of those not mentioned — Robert Folger, of the same 
blood as Franklin's mother and the late Secretary of 
the Treasury; Joshua Coffin and Shubael Coffin, con- 
nections of Sir Isaac Coffin, the baronet; Thomas 
Hiller; Silas Holmes, the merchant of New York; 
Gideon Gardner, Resolved Gardner, the latter one of 
Girard's captains; John Grinnell, Thomas Bunker, 
Reuben R. Bunker, Jonathan Colesworthy, the East 
India Captain, John Gardner of Philadelphia, Walter 
Folger, J. C. Briggs, Joseph Chase, Silas Ives, James 
Gwin, Ransom Jones, Gideon Ramsdell, Seth Swain, 
Jacob Barker, Latham Gardner, Thaddeus Coffin, 
Micajah Gardner, Zebulon Coffin, Robert Mott, and 
George Pollard, who was with Fulton on the Clermont 
in 1807, when she made her first trip up the Hudson, 
and Joseph Rotch, who commanded the Dartmovth 
on her first voyage out after the tea had been emptied 
out of her (the voyage was to London, and on her 
return she foundered, and Captain Rotch and his 
crew were taken off by Timothy Folger and brought 
to Boston, November, 1774), and the Watermans — 
Thaddeus, Robert, and Robert, Jr. — the latter 
famed for his quick China passages, seventy-four and 



The Sea Kings of Nantucket 141 

seventy-eight days, which have never been beaten 
— Alexander Coffin, the London packet master, who 
conveyed Dr. Franklin's despatches to the Continental 
Congress, and Nathan Coffin, his grandfather, whom 
Bancroft cites ('History of the United States,' vol. ix, 
p. 313) as a noble example of the indomitable spirit 
of the American patriot, and scores of others, who each 
achieved such greatness that we might look upon him 
and say: 

Take him for all in all, he was a man, 
We ne'er shall look upon his like again. 



CHAPTER XIX 

WRECKS AND WRECKING 

^^ THILE on the island my friend introduced me 
^ ^ to "the Captain's room," one of the institu- 
tions of Nantucket. 

It is a club room moored alongside the custom house, 
where the old captains meet morning and evening, 
smoke Indian pipes, talk over the affairs of the day and 
indulge in reminiscences of their seafaring days. The 
stranger, so happy as to be introduced there, hears mov- 
ing tales of swift voyages, big catches, perilous adven- 
tures, storms and wrecks. Of the latter, simply to 
show the flavor of the place, we note a few. 

" One of the strangest wrecks on the coast," remarked 
Captain R., "occurred before the revolution — in 1774 
it was. The man that told me about it, my grand- 
father, had clean forgotten the vessel's names, but he 
remembered that they were a schooner and a sloop, and 
that the skippers were Peleg Swain and David Squires, 
two famous commanders of those days. Both vessels 
stood away from Sankaty together, bound on a whaling 
voyage to the Pacific. They were about fifteen miles 
off the island verging on to Great Rip, when there 



Wrecks and Wrecking 143 

came a cry of ' breakers ahead,' and there, right under 
their bows, was a smoking surf boihng and breaking 
on the very spot they had sailed over in making port a 
month before. The tricky current in one storm had 
heaped up a bar there. In a moment both struck, with 
a shock that made their masts reel and every timber 
shiver. The sea was running high; notwithstanding, 
the sloop's crew out with their boats and tried to carry 
an anchor astern, hoping by it to warp her off. The 
furious sea, however, dumped the anchor under her 
bows and swept the boat over the bar. Unable to 
regain the sloop, the boat made for shore, and after an 
exciting battle with the waves came safely into the 
harbor. Thirteen of the crew were left on the vessel. 
She broke up in a few hours, but her quarter deck 
floated off whole, and the thirteen climbing upon this 
were swept by the seas upon the sou'east shore and 
made their way to Sconset. Meantime, hard and fast 
a mile to lee'ard, was the schooner. Her crew fared 
worse even, for her boats were shivered at the first 
crash. They made a raft and tried to gain the shore, 
paddling with oars and pieces of wood. Nearing 
Sconset on the evening of the same day, they were 
being swept by when their shouts aroused the village 
and the brave fellows there went out and rescued them. 
Next day the owners sent out a vessel to the scene, but 
she couldn't find a trace of schooner or sloop — the 
currents had carried every bit of wreckage, even, away. 



144 In Olde Massachusetts 

So the owners had two fine vessels, with their outfits, 
worth at least $30,000, to put on the loss side of the 
ledger." 

" Curious," said an old merchant over in the corner, 
" how the wrecks come in shoals. Some years scarcely 
any, and again scores, as was the case on December 21, 
24, and 25, 1865. 

First to come was the Eveline Treat, Captain Philbrook, 
picked up by Miacomet Rip. The life-saving men saw 
her, but the sea was too furious for the life-boat, so they 
fired a line over her bow, drew out a hawser, and started 
the breeches buoy. Every person came over it safely 
but the Captain, an old man. As he left the ship the 
block got jammed and refused to traverse the hawser, 
so that he hung over the waves a matter of an hour and 
a half, drenched by the spray and slowly freezing, 
w'hile fifteen hundred people looked on unable to help. 
At last a young man of the old heroic stuff, unable longer 
to see a man drowning before his eyes, stepped from 
the crowd, threw aside coat and boots, took a knife 
between his teeth, knotted a light rope to his waist, and 
giving the free end to the bystanders, went out hand over 
hand along the hawser, at one moment, as the vessel 
rolled, held high in air, the next dipped in the raging 
flood, until he reached the entangled block, freed it, 
and with the Captain was brought safely back to land. 
The brave fellow — Frederick W. Ramsdell — received 
a gold medal for this act, and richly deserved it too. 



Wrecks and Wrecking 145 

The excitement over this wreck had scarcely died 
out when the town was stirred by news of a schooner 
ashore on the West End. 

It was December 24 and the thermometer six degrees 
below zero, yet almost everybody able-bodied streamed 
over the downs to the wreck. What a sight she was. From 
main trucks to water line coated with ice that sparkled 
in the sun like tiaras of diamonds. The Humane 
Society's crew was there, launched their boat and 
reached the wreck though the surf ran high. No one 
was on board. The crew had taken to their boats 
and had perished in the sea. An upturned boat and a 
dead man under it, found later on the beach, told the 
story of the mariner's fate. The next day — Christmas 
— came in with a furious sou'east gale, and at an early 
hour the herald sped through the town with his start- 
ling cry, "A wreck, a wreck; a big ship at Surfside!" 
That is on the south shore three miles from town, 
directly across the downs, and a boiling, seething mass 
of water rages there in a sou'easter — we call it Nep- 
tune's dinner pot. An appalling sight we beheld there. 
A noble iron ship of 800 tons, held in the grip of the 
sands, and pounded by thundering breakers like Titanic 
hammers, that, striking her, spouted fifty feet in air 
with the shock. Masts, spars, furniture, cargo they 
tossed aloft as mere playthings, and as for anything 
human, it could not have stood the shock of those seas 
an instant. Every soul had vanished ere we reached 



146 In Olde Massachusetts 

her, and there was naught to do but look on. She 
proved to be the Newton, Captain Herting, only thirty- 
six hours from New York, bound to Hamburg, Ger- 
many, with a miscellaneous cargo, the largest item 
being 5,000 barrels of kerosene oil. Not a soul 
of her crew was saved. The Humane Society's 
crew found, thrown on the bluff, the body, yet 
warm, of her young second mate, who had just 
graduated with honor at the Hamburg Naval School. 
Of the crews of the two vessels the sea gave up fourteen, 
which were borne to the town and placed in the Metho- 
dist church, where funeral rites were held, the pastors 
of all the churches officiating. Then the unfortunates 
were buried in the island cemetery with due religious 
rites, and tidings of their sad fate and directions for 
reaching their graves were sent to their friends in Ger- 
many." 

"You would scarcely look for anything funny in 
wrecks," said another, knocking the ashes from his 
pipe, "but now and then an incident occurs that has 
its humorous side. Take, for instance, the case of the 
good ship Nathaniel Hooper, of Boston, Capt. John 
Bogardus. She struck on South Shoal, off Nantucket, 
July 8, 1838. To lighten her the Captain threw over- 
board several hundred boxes of sugar between decks; 
but as she remained fast and was pounding heavily, he 
abandoned her, fearing she would go to pieces unex- 
pectedly. The boats reached shore and Captain Bo- 



Wrecks and Wrecking 147 

gardus hurried up to Boston to report her loss to the 
owTiers. 'Why, man,' said they, 'you are dreaming. 
The Hooper is safe in her berth at India dock.' Do%\ti 
there posted the Captain, and scarce could believe the 
evidence of his senses. He rubbed his eyes and looked 
again. Yes, there was the Hooper, that he had left 
aground on South Shoal, with a storm coming up. 
Hastening back to the owners, they told him the story — 
how the storm proved to be a heavy shower from the 
northwest, which blew her oflF the shoal; that she then 
drifted off toward Boston, and early next morning was 
fallen in with by a Gloucester fishing smack, which, 
scenting salvage, put two men on board, with orders to 
make the port of Boston. The men navigated her 
awhile, but finding themselves short-handed, took on 
three more from another smack they fell in with, 
and the five successfully took the ship into the 
harbor." 

" For bravery and invention at rescue," said another 
old sea king from the depths of his armchair, "take 
the case of the fine ship Earl of Eglinton, which left 
Liverpool in December, 1845, bound for the East 
Indies via Boston, and on the 14th of March, 1846, 
after a bitterly stormy passage, found herself embayed 
in the shoals of Nantucket Sound. At once the startled 
mariners let go their best bower, but the vessel thumped 
so that the heavy cable parted and she went adrift 
amid thunder, lightning, and fog, until about midnight 



148 In Olde Massachusetts 

she struck on Old Man Shoal. At three in the morning, 
after grinding and thumping three hours, she slipped 
off into deep water and was carried along by the cur- 
rent, between the rip and island, until daybreak, when 
the crew, spying a little cove near Tom Never's Head, 
where the surf seemed less violent, ran her in shore 
until she grounded in five fathoms of water. The same 
moment a huge breaker came aboard, swept the deck, 
filled the cabins, and forced all hands into the rigging. 
A great crowd soon gathered on shore, almost within 
hailing distance, but wholly without means of rescue, 
the surf being too violent for the life-boat, and the 
Lyle gun and breeches buoy not having been invented. 
After awhile eight of the crew launched the life-boat 
and pinnace, and in them attempted to make the shore, 
but both boats were stove to splinters the moment they 
touched the surf, and their occupants drowned and 
pounded to death before the eyes of the horrified spec- 
tators. This drove an inventive old whaleman among 
them to write on a board in large letters : " Bind a line 
to an oar." The crew on the wreck read the message 
and did as directed ; the surges heaved the oar landward, 
it was caught with a bluefish drail, a hawser was then 
attached to the end on the wreck and drawn ashore 
and made fast. Next our inventor improvised a sling 
out of an old hames and a bow line which would travel 
over the hawser, and by means of this extempore 
breeches buoy, all the remaining crew were rescued. 



Wrecks and Wrecking 149 

This device led, no doubt, to the invention of the 
breeches buoy." 

One might collect tales of wrecks as distinctive and 
interesting as the above sufficient to fill a volume. The 
whole coast of the island is lined with skeletons of 
wrecks, barnacled old timbers, planks, spars, bolts, and 
other mementoes of the sea's treachery and fur}\ The 
fields are fenced, and the barns and outhouses covered 
with the spoil of wrecks. Over in "Sconset" they 
have a weird fancy for nailing stem planks of wrecked 
vessels bearing the ship's name over the lintels of the 
doors as a sort of figurehead, and the cottager's fire 
snaps and sparkles mainly on the drift of wrecks cast 
up at his door. It bums with a greenish flame, this 
wreck timber, and exhales a strong sea odor. A poeti- 
cal friend of mine asserts that it is prolific of eldritch 
fancies. 



CHAPTER XX 

NANTUCKET ENTERTAINS THE GOVERNOR 

WHEN my friend was not telling sea stories, I 
was curled up in his library, poring over 
a mass of scrap books, log books, old letters, etc., of 
which he had great store. In one of these scrap books, 
I unearthed the following account of Governor 
Lincoln's visit to Nantucket before the day of steam- 
boats, written by one of the members of his staff — no 
less a personage indeed than Josiah Quincy himself. 

My friend regarded the time-stained pages with 
interest. "Yes," he said, "that was in September, 
1825. The party comprised the Governor, Hezekiah 
Barnard, Treasurer of State; Aaron Hill, Postmaster 
of Boston; Colonel Davis, he who was later the Hon. 
Josiah Quincy, but was then a young man just out of 
college, and acting as private secretary to the Gover- 
nor; Miss Abby Hedge, and three other sprightly and 
charming young ladies whose names are not given. 
The party proceeded by stage to Falmouth, on Cape 
Cod, where they found the Nantucket packet ready to 
sail, and also a head wind which prevented her doing 
anything of the sort. ' Oh ! those head winds,' exclaims 



Nantucket Entertains the Governor 151 

the narrator; 'what plagues they were to those who 
were in a hurry to leave our harbors, and how steam 
has lengthened the lives of travelers by sparing them 
those dreary waits. We had risen at a most uncom- 
fortable hour to post on to Falmouth; and here we 
might remain a week, unless the wind condescended to 
blow from some quarter that would allow our vessel 
to get out of the bay. We accepted this fact with such 
philosophy as was available, listening the while to the 
prognostications of the skippers, and frequently gazing 
at the heavens for such hope or consolation as they 
might supply. But we were not on this occasion to 
be tried beyond our strength, for as the sun went down 
the wind hauled several points, and we were off. 

'"Concerning the passage, I will only observe that 
the Nantucket packet, although it carried the ruler of 
a sovereign State, could by no means transform itself 
into a royal yacht. We were stowed in narrow bunks 
in an indiscriminate and vulgar manner, and took such 
repose as we might till two o'clock in the morning, 
when a sudden thud, followed by an unpleasant swash- 
ing sound about the vessel's sides, brought us to our 
feet to inquire what had happened. "All right," said 
the skipper. "Just you lie still till morning; we're 
aground on Nantucket Bar. That's all." Thus ad- 
jured, we thought it best to remain below, till a faint 
suspicion of dawn struggled into the cabin, and gave 
us an excuse for coming upon deck. Several whaling- 



152 In Olde Massachusetts 

ships, anchored outside the harbor, loomed to gigantic 
proportions in the gray morning. " There is Yankee per- 
severance for you," exclaimed the Governor. "Would 
they believe in Europe that a port which annually sends 
eighty of these whalers to the Pacific has a harbor 
which a sloop drawing eight feet of water cannot enter ? " 

" ' Soon after sunrise the tide lighted us over the bar, 
and it was not long before two whale-boats were seen 
pulling sturdily for the packet. In the stern of one sat 
Mr. Barker Burnell, and in the other Mr. Macy, both 
leading men to whom the islanders had delegated the 
duties of reception. And full of modest cordiality 
was our meeting by the occupants of the boats, and by 
the crowd of citizens who had assembled upon the shore 
to see the Governor land. There was no pushing or 
vulgar staring; indeed, there was a certain pervading 
air of diflldence, by no means characteristic of street 
assemblies upon the continent; but the heartiest good- 
will beamed from sober faces, when the long spell was 
broken and the Executive fairly stood upon Nantucket 
sands. 

"'As there was no house sufficiently capacious to 
accommodate our party, it was divided among the hos- 
pitable inhabitants, the Governor and Colonel Davis 
being entertained by Mr. Macy, Treasurer Barnard by 
Mr. Hill, and the youngest aide-de-camp by Mr. Burnell. 
And then came visits to the whale-ships and the sper- 
maceti works, dinners and evening receptions, the latter 



Nantucket Entertains the Governor 153 

being graced by the presence of very pretty young 
women. Then on Saturday morning carriages were 
ordered to take us to Siasconset, that is, it will sound 
better to call them carriages, but they were in fact 
springless tip-carts very like those used at the present 
day for the carting of gravel. The ancient Romans, 
when enjoying a triumph, appear to have ridden in two- 
wheeled vehicles, bearing considerable resemblance 
to that in which our Massachusetts chieftain passed 
through the admiring streets of Nantucket. But none 
of these old heroes balanced himself more deftly in his 
chariot, took its jolts with more equanimity, or bowed 
more graciously to the populace, than did good Gov- 
ernor Lincoln when undergoing his transportation by 
tip-cart. There are some personalities which seem to 
supply their own pageantry. Mr. Pickwick is not 
extinguished even when trundled in a wheelbarrow. 
The escort, however, rather wilted before they reached 
Siasconset, and found the noble chowder there prepared 
for their commander-in-chief very acceptable. 

"'The Governor's visit may be said to have reached 
its crisis in a solemn reception at the insurance office, 
whither repaired all the leading citizens to be pre- 
sented to their guest. Many of them were old whalers, 
simple and intelligent, yet with that air of authority 
which the habit of command exercised in difficult 
situations is sure to give. Their ruddy health, strong 
nerves, and abundant energy made one suspect that 



154 In Olde Massachusetts 

there were some of the finest human qualities which 
are not to be tested by the examinations of Harvard 
College. I was introduced to several of these men who 
had never been on the continent of North America, 
though they had visited South America and the Pacific 
islands. I have noted also talking with one Quaker 
gentleman of sixty, who had seen no other horizon 
than that which bounds Nantucket. The Friends, 
being the oldest and most respectable body of Chris- 
tians, gave their somber color to the town and their 
thrifty ways to those holding its purse-strings. For 
instance, when it was complained that Nantucket, the 
greatest depot of spermaceti and whale oil in the whole 
world, was likewise its darkest corner in the evening, 
it was replied that it would be culpably extravagant to 
consume at home in street lanterns oil that had been 
procured for exportation. Moreover, the reckless in- 
novater was invited to impale himself upon one of the 
horns of this little dilemma: Oil was either high or 
low. Now, if it was low, the citizens could not afford 
to pay the tax; but if it was high, the town could not 
afford to purchase it. 

" ' After the reception we all went to the barber-shop, 
not to be shaved, but to inspect the collection of South 
Sea curiosities of which this functionary was the cus- 
todian. And here we lingered until it was time to 
prepare for the grand party in honor of the Governor, 
which would furnish a brilliant conclusion to his visit. 



Nantucket Entertains the Governor 155 

This party was given by Mr. Aaron Mitchell, and was 
said to be the finest in all its appointments that the 
island had yet kno\^'n. There was, of course, no 
dancing, but the number of beautiful and lively young 
women impressed me as exceeding anything that could 
be looked for in a similar gathering upon the mainland, 
and filled me with regrets that we were to sail at day- 
break the next morning. My journal relates how I 
was expressing my feelings in this particular to a bright 
bevy of these girls when Hezekiah Barnard suddenly 
joined our group and put in this remark : " Friend, if 
thou really wishest to tarry on our island, thou hast 
only to persuade one of these young women to put a 
black cat under a tub, and surely there will be a head 
wind to-morrow." This sailor's superstition, of which 
I had never heard, was the cause of much pleasantry. 
The ladies united in declaring that there was not a 
black cat in all Nantucket, they having been smothered 
under tubs to retain husbands and brothers who were 
bound for the southern seas. At last Miss Baxter 
(the prettiest girl in the room, says my record) con- 
fessed to the possession of a black kitten. "But then 
would this do ? Surely, a very heavy and mature pussy, 
perhaps even two of them, would be required to keep 
a Governor against his will." "Yes, but then an aide- 
de-camp would certainly be kept by a kitten, even if 
it were not weaned, and Miss Baxter had only to dis- 
miss the Governor from her thoughts and concentrate 



156 In Olde Massachusetts 

them upon his humble attendant, and the charm would 
work." I do not know whether young people talk in 
this way now, or whether they are as glad as Miss 
Baxter and I were to find some topic other than the 
weather to ring our simple changes on; but I should 
refrain from personal episodes in this historical epic, 
which deals with the august movements of the Gover- 
nor. It is well for us chroniclers to remember that the 
ego et rex meus way of telling things once got poor 
Cardinal Wolsey into a good deal of difficulty. 

"'"Wind dead ahead," were the words with which 
Mr. Burnell called me the next morning. " The Gov- 
ernor must spend Sunday on the island and we will show 
him a Quaker meeting and Micajah Coffin." An ac- 
count of both these objects of interest finds its place in 
my journal. At the Friends' Society we sat for nearly an 
hour in absolute silence, and this seemed to me very 
favorable to reflection and devotional feeling. There 
was something in the absence of any human expression 
in the awful presence of the Maker which struck me as 
a more fitting homage than any words or ceremony 
could convey. It was only when two women felt them- 
selves moved by the spirit to address the assembly that 
my feelings underwent a quick revulsion, and I acknowl- 
edged that for the majority of Christians, at least, a 
trained and learned clergy would long be indispensable. 

'"After meeting, the Governor and his staff paid a 
visit of ceremony to Micajah Coffin, the oldest and most 



Nantucket Entertains the Governor 157 

respected citizen of the island. At a time when the 
rulings of etiquette were far more stringent than at 
present, it was doubted whether the representative 
of a sovereign State could properly call upon a private 
person who had not first waited upon him. Lincoln's 
decision that this case should be an exception to all 
general rules was no less creditable to the magistrate 
than gratifying to the islanders. For good friend 
Coffin, then past ninety, was at times unable to com- 
mand his memory, and his friends had not thought it 
right to subject him to the excitements of the reception 
at the insurance office. For twenty-two years this 
venerable man had represented Nantucket in the 
Massachusetts General Court. In his youth he had 
worked at carpentering, and gone whaling in a sloop, 
bringing home on one occasion two hundred barrels 
of sperm oil, which made its owner a rich man. These 
latter particulars I learn from Mr. William C. Folger 
of Nantucket, who remembers Mr. Coffin as a tall old 
gentleman dressed in the style of a past age. And one 
thing more Mr. Folger mentions of which the signifi- 
cance will presently appear. Benjamin Cofiin, the 
father of Micajah, was one of Nantucket's best school- 
masters for about half a century. I had been looking 
in vain through college catalogues to explain a singu- 
lar circumstance which my journal relates, but the 
appearance of Benjamin Coffin, the schoolmaster, 
suggests the true solution of the difiiculty. When this 



158 In Olde Massachusetts 

patriarch of Nantucket was presented to the Governor, 
it made so Httle impression upon him that he instantly 
forgot the presence of the chief Magistrate; and yet a 
moment afterwards he astonished us with one of those 
strange feats of memory which show with how tight a 
grip the mysterious nerve-centers of which we hear so 
much hold what has been committed to them. For, 
having a dim consciousness that something out of the 
common was expected of him, the venerable man turned 
suddenly upon Postmaster Hill and proceeded to 
harangue that very modest gentleman in a set Latin 
speech. It was one of those occurrences which might 
appear either sad or droll to the bystanders, and I hope 
it does not reflect upon the good feelings of the party 
to mention that we found its comic aspect quite irre- 
sistible. There was poor Mr. Hill, overcome with 
mortification at being mistaken for the Governor, and 
shrinking from fine Latin superlatives which, under 
this erroneous impression, were discharged at him. 
And when the Postmaster at the conclusion of the 
address felt that he was bound in courtesy to make 
some response (which of course could not be in the 
vernacular), and could hit upon nothing better than 
" Out, Monsieur, je vous remercie," the climax was 
reached, and even the Governor was forced to give 
audible expression to his sense of the ridiculous. And 
thus it was that testimony was given to the good in- 
struction of Master Benjamin Coffin. The father had 



Nantucket Entertains the Governor 159 

undoubtedly taught liis son Latin as a spoken lan- 
guage, as the custom formerly was. The lessons were 
given in the first half of the eighteenth century, and 
here am I in the concluding fifth of the nineteenth able 
to testify to the thoroughness of the teaching. 

'"Micajah Coffin lived for little more than a year 
after the visit of Lincoln. "In his old age," says Mr. 
Folger, "he took an interest in visiting the sick, and 
aiding them in procuring native plants, suited to cure, 
or at least to relieve, their various maladies." I learn 
also that in his rambles about Nantucket, when he met 
a face that was unknown to him, he was accustomed 
to stop and give this challenge: "Friend, my name is 
Micajah Coffin; what is thine.'*" It was the robust 
personality of which there was no reason to be ashamed, 
and testifies to the reasonableness of the high esteem 
in which his character and services were held. 

"'Early Monday morning we left Nantucket with a 
breeze which carried us to New Bedford in six hours. 
The Governor's reception in that town, the courtesy 
of the Selectmen, the magnificent hospitalities of the 
Rotches and Rodmans, my space compels me to omit. 
One word, however, of the picture presented by the 
venerable William Rotch, standing between his son 
and grandson, the elder gentlemen being in their 
Quaker dresses, and the youngest in the fashionable 
costume of the day. "You will never see a more ideal 
representation of extreme age, middle life, and vigorous 



160 In Olde Massachusetts 

maturity than is given by these three handsome and 
inteUigent men," said Governor Lincoln to me as we 
left the house. Up to this date at least his prediction 
has been verified.'" 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE MASHPEES, 1885 

ONE of the strangest anomalies I have met, in my 
rambles over Cape Cod, is an Indian township, 
owned and officered by Indians ; its schools and churches 
supported by Indians, and its public affairs conducted 
by them. The town is called Mashpee — the aborigi- 
nal name of the people that inhabit it — and lies in the 
southwestern corner of Barnstable County, barely sixty 
miles from Boston, on the shore of Vineyard Sound. 
Sandwich, Falmouth, and Barnstable are adjoining 
towns. In area it comprises some sixteen square 
miles — or 10,500 acres — much of it forest, lake, and 
marsh. The existence of this aboriginal township is 
almost unknown to the general public, and its history 
is obscure though interesting. Much of it is of a nature 
to make the white man blush for his race. 

At the time the Mayflower furled her sails oflf Cape 
Cod, the Mashpees were spread over its entire surface, 
though their chief villages were near the narrow neck 
that joins it to the mainland, in the vicinity of the 
present Mashpee. After Sandwich and Barnstable 
were settled the churches there began the work of 



162 In Olde Massachusetts 

civilizing and Christianizing the Indians in their midst. 
The Rev. Richard Bourne seems to have been the first 
resident missionary, having been installed August 17, 
1660, Eliot and other ministers assisting. Before this, 
seeing that the Indians were rapidly being despoiled 
of their lands by white settlers, he procured of them a 
deed for some twenty-two square miles of land sur- 
rounding their villages, intending that it should be 
entailed after his death for the benefit of the Indians 
and their children. This was done, his son, after the 
father's death, procuring a ratification of the deed by 
the court at Plymouth, and an entailment of the lands 
to the Indians and their children forever, with a clause 
that the lands should never be sold without the consent 
of all the tribe. This was the origin of the Mashpee 
reservation. Mr. Bourne was fairly successful in his 
work. In 1674 he reported the number of "paying" 
Indians at Satuit, Pawpoeset, Coatuit, Mashpee, and 
Wakoquett as being ninety-five, of which twenty-four 
could read and ten write. At the same time he con- 
fessed that many were loose in their course, to his 
"heart-breaking sorrow." His successor in the work 
was an Indian named Solomon Popmonet, who served 
the people forty years. During his ministry, in 1711, 
the Rev. Daniel Williams, of London, Eng., bequeathed 
by will a large sum to be placed in the hands of the 
"College of Cambridge in New England," "for the work 
of converting the Indians there." The trustees of this 



The Mashpees 163 

fund have since devoted its proceeds largely to the 
Mashpees, and it now forms the chief support of the 
resident missionary among them. 

From 1693 to 1763 the Indians appear to have lived 
contentedly enough, on their reservation, under the 
care of guardians appointed by the General Court, 
although they retrograded in morals, despite the 
efforts of the missionaries who resided among them. 
Fire-water, the bane of the red man, seems to have 
been their greatest enemy, and the negroes and renegade 
wliite men who flocked to the reservation, intermarried 
and became members of the community, were a fruit- 
ful source of corruption. The missionaries during 
this period were the Rev. Joseph Bourne, Solomon 
Bryant, an Indian, and the Rev. Gideon Hawley, of 
Stratford, Conn., who had previously been a mis- 
sionary to the Stockbridge Indians under Jonathan 
Edwards. Mr. Hawley was not favorably impressed 
by the Mashpees on first coming among them. " The 
Indians," he says, "appeared abject and widely dif- 
ferent from the Iroquois. They were clad according 
to the English mode, but a half-naked savage was less 
disag-reeable to me than Indians who had lost their 
independence." In 1763 the General Court passed 
its first act of aggression — an act erecting Mashpee into 
a district. By this law the entire government of the 
tribe was confided to five Overseers, two of whom 
were to be Englishmen, to be elected by the proprietors 



164 In Olde Massachusetts 

in public meeting. The act also provided for the elec- 
tion of a Town Clerk and Treasurer, both to be Eng- 
lishmen. A majority of the Overseers had the sole 
power to regulate the fishery, to lease such lands and 
fisheries as were held in common for not exceeding two 
years, and to allot to the Indians their upland and 
meadows. The law was to continue in force only 
three years, but when the year 1766 came the aggres- 
sions of the mother country occupied the entire atten- 
tion of the colony, and the act was not revived. It is 
said, however, that the Indians still continued to 
choose their Overseers under the charter of 1763, 
though without authority, and that it was the only 
government they had during the Revolution. In the 
struggle of the colonies for liberty the Mashpees sus- 
tained a worthy part. Their petition to the Legisla- 
ture in 1835 recites that when a continental regiment 
of four hundred men was raised in Barnstable County 
in 1777, twenty-seven Mashpee Indians enlisted for 
the whole war. "They fought through the war," it 
continues, " and not one survives. After the war our 
fathers had sixty widows left on the plantation whose 
husbands had died or been slain." They were also 
expert whalemen, and aided largely in manning the 
whaling fleets of Barnstable and New Bedford. 

In 1788 the oppression of the poor Mashpees began 
in earnest. The Legislature of that year repealed all 
former laws, and placed them absolutely in charge of a 



The Mashpees 165 

Board of Guardians, in whose selection the Indians 
had no choice. There were at this time eighty famihes 
on the reservation. This act reduced them to virtual 
slavery. The Guardians had absolute control of their 
persons and property. They leased the Indian lands 
and tenements, drew and regulated all bargains, con- 
tracts, and wages, bound out children of both sexes to 
the whites without consent of their parents, and could 
indenture to a master any adult proprietor whom they 
should adjudge an idler or drunkard, and appropriate 
his earnings as they saw fit. But this was not all. As 
years passed the lands of the Indians and their fishing 
and hunting privileges became exceedingly valuable, 
and excited the cupidity of the neighboring whites. 
Fishermen came into the bays and inlets for the herring 
and mackerel that abounded there. Their lakes and 
preserves were raided on, and the hay on their meadows 
and the wood in their forests were cut and carted away 
with the most unblushing effrontery. During all this 
time no provision was made by the State for the educa- 
tion of the Indian children. They had no benefit of 
the school fund of the State; were not even included in 
the census returns, and the Indian children were bound 
out by the Overseers with the understanding that they 
were not to be educated. In 1835, however, when pub- 
lic attention was directed to the wrongs of the Mashpees, 
Massachusetts partly atoned for past neglect by appro- 
priating one hundred dollars annually for the educa- 



166 In Olde Massachusetts 

tion of these helpless wards. Their share as a town 
would have been but fifteen dollars. 

By 1833 the Mashpees had become exceedingly 
restive under this condition of affairs, and the bolder 
spirits among them were earnestly longing for liberty. 
At length a village Hampden, Daniel Amos, a ship- 
master, more intelligent than his brethren, matured 
a plan for their escape. A methodist preacher, William 
Apes, a native of the Pequot tribe of Connecticut, was 
the Cromwell whom he employed to effect his purpose. 
Apes was a man of firmness, an eloquent speaker, and 
had the talent and address which the Mashpees lacked. 
In the course of a visiting tour among them, early in 
1833, he preached for them, and was invited to become 
their pastor, they having become dissatisfied with the 
preaching of the settled missionary, the Rev. Mr. Fish. 
He consented, and early in May settled among them as 
their pastor. On the 21st of May the Mashpees 
assembled in their Council-house, and as their first act 
adopted Mr. Apes as a member of the tribe. They 
next prepared two petitions, one to the Governor and 
Council, complaining against the Overseers and the 
laws relating to the tribe, and one to the corporation 
of Harvard College, against the missionary. To these 
papers they affixed a series of resolutions in the nature 
of a declaration of independence, as follows : " Resolved, 
That we as a tribe will rule ourselves, and have the 
right to do so; for all men are born free and equal, says 



The Mashpees 167 

the Constitution of our countrj'." " Resolved, That we 
will not permit any white man to come upon our plan- 
tation to cut or carry off wood or hay or any other 
article, without our permission, after the 1st of July next." 
"Resolved, That we will put said resolutions in force 
after that date, with the penalty of binding and throw- 
ing them from the plantation if they will not stay away 
without." On the 2otli of June succeeding they 
adopted a form of government, concerted laws, and 
appointed officers, twelve in all, to execute them. 
Having thus organized, they informed the Overseers 
and public at large of their intentions by the following 
"notice": "Having been heretofore distressed, de- 
graded, and robbed daily, we have taken steps to put 
a stop to these things; and having made choice of our 
own town officers, . . . we would say to our white 
friends, we are wanting nothing but our rights betwixt 
man and man. And now rest assured that said reso- 
lutions will be enforced after the first day of July, 
1833." They then proceeded to discharge the Over- 
seers, missionary, and other officers appointed by the 
State. 

These proceedings excited the utmost surprise and 
alarm among the neighboring whites, and a messenger 
was despatched to Governor Lincoln at Worcester, 
apprising him that an insurrection had broken out 
among the Mashpees, and praying for protection. 
Meantime the first of July came, and the Mashpees, 



168 In Olde Massachusetts 

finding a wliite man named Sampson carting wood 
from their reservation, proceeded to put their resolu- 
tions in force. He was asked to unload the stolen 
property, and on his refusing three or four of the Indians 
quickly unloaded the cart, the man being allowed to 
depart unmolested. On receiving news of the threat- 
ened insurrection Governor Lincoln despatched an 
envoy to Mashpee with instructions to call a council of 
the tribe, listen to their grievances, and, if possible, 
effect an amicable settlement. The council was held, 
but in the midst of its deliberations the High Sheriff of 
Barnstable County approached William Apes with a 
warrant for his arrest, on charges of riot, assault, and 
trespass, the complaint being brought by Sampson, 
the man whose cart had been unloaded a few days 
before. The clergyman quietly submitted and accom- 
panied the Sheriff to Cotuit, where his examination 
was conducted. He pleaded not guilty, nor were the 
charges sustained by the witnesses brought against 
him, yet under an alleged law against "constructive 
riot" he was bound over to appear at the next session 
of the Court of Common Pleas for Barnstable County. 
The trial came off in due time, and was perhaps the 
most shameful perversion of justice that ever disgraced 
the Bay State. The jurors were bitterly prejudiced 
against the prisoner. The Judge, it was said at the 
time, had predetermined that he should be brought in 
guilty; he was therefore convicted, and sentenced to 



The Mashpees 1G9 

thirty days' imprisonment with common felons in the 
county jail. The sentence created much comment. 
The liberal press of the State denounced it as an outrage, 
and eminent members of the bar spoke of it as a trav- 
esty on justice. Apes quietly served out his sentence, 
and by his martyrdom won the manumission of his 
brethren. 

The publicity given this affair thoroughly informed 
the Commonwealth as to the true status of the Mash- 
pees before the law, and the Legislature of 1834 par- 
tially righted their wrongs by erecting the reservation 
into a district, and allowing them the right of choosing 
their local officers. The odious feature of a Commis- 
sioner to supervise their affairs was still retained, how- 
ever, to the great dissatisfaction of the people, and it 
was not until 1842 that the office was abolished, and 
the Indians allowed to manage their affairs in their 
own way. Up to that time the lands of the reserva- 
tion had been held in common ; now they were appor- 
tioned among the "proprietors," each one, whether 
male or female, receiving sixty acres as his or her own. 
Several thousand acres remained undivided, and were 
sold in 1870 for $7,700 for the benefit of the tribe. Uni- 
versal suffrage made the Indian, as well as the negro, 
a citizen, and in 1870 Mashpee was incorporated a 
town, and has since continued to enjoy municipal 
privileges. 

Desirous of judging for himself of the present con- 



170 In Olde Massachusetts 

dition and prospects of this ancient people, the writer 
recently paid them a visit. Sandwich, on the Old 
Colony road, a pretty village, noted for its production 
of fine glassware, is the nearest point reached by rail- 
way, and there I took a carriage for the Indian village, 
some ten miles distant. Our road led over the back- 
bone of the Cape, through the oak scrub so common 
to the region, but now scorched and blackened by one 
of the terrible fires that periodically ravage it. We 
could see the fire raging then, two or three miles to the 
westward, and had learned before setting out that it 
had burned two or three barns and farmhouses in West 
Sandwich the night before. We had striking proof of 
its energy in the green leaves burned from the oaks to 
their summits, and in the ease with which it had leaped 
the roadway to continue its destructive work beyond. 
Near the verge of the burnt district we saw a deep, 
wide trench leading into the forest, which the driver 

— a Mashpee Indian, by the way, and quite intelligent 

— said extended for several miles, and had been dug by 
the citizens to stop the spread of the flames. A little 
further on we met a warden pacing his appointed beat, 
to see that no embers were whirled over the line into 
the dry leaves, to start a new conflagration. Six miles 
out we came to the crest of a hill and looked down upon 
a beautiful lake some three miles long, covering the 
whole area of a narrow valley. Its shores were irregu- 
lar and wooded, and there were two green islands in 



The Mashpees 171 

its center. The driver called it Mashpee Pond, and 
expatiated largely on the fine trout, pickerel, perch, 
and bass to be taken in its waters. We swept around 
the eastern shore of the pond, and in half an hour were 
at Mashpee — a hamlet of thirty or forty one-story 
cottages, most of them unpainted, and scattered about 
in the open fields. The Rev. William Hurst, of the 
Baptist Church, is now the resident missionary, and 
from him I gathered some interesting particulars of 
the present condition of the Indians. There are some 
three hundred and fifty members of the tribe now 
living in the town, of whom only two or three are 
pure bloods. They live in some seventy dwellings, 
scattered over the reservation. The church stands 
near the center of the town, a plain edifice, differ- 
ing little from the ordinary country chapel. I was 
struck with the aptness of William Apes's descrip- 
tion written in 1832: "The sacred edifice stood in 
the midst of a noble forest, and seemed to be about 
one hundred years old. Hard by was an Indian 
burial-ground, overgrown with pines, in which the 
graves were ranged north and south. A delightful 
brook, fed by some of the sweetest springs in Massa- 
chusetts, murmured beside it." Mr. Hurst preaches 
to a congregation of from seventy-five to one hundred 
each Sunday, and has a membership of sixty, only one 
of whom is white. He derives his support in part from 
the Indians, but chiefly from the Williams fund, which 



172 In Olde Massachusetts 

yields an annual stipend of $550. There is a parsonage 
and an acre of land belonging to the parish. A Sunday 
school is held the year round. There are frequent 
temperance concerts and lectures, and a lyceum is 
maintained in the winter. 

Mr. Hurst reports his parishoners fully up to the 
average of white communities in morals and piety. 

The women are much more industrious than the men, 
showing the force of inherited tendencies, but the latter 
are much more ambitious and thrifty than formerly. 
They till their fields, hunt, fish, pick berries, work on 
the cranberry bogs, of which there are several in the 
town, and follow the sea. Two schools were kept in the 
town the past season — one by a young gentleman from 
Boston, the other by the pastor's daughter, the average 
attendance being seventy-six. I visited several of the 
Indians at their homes. Solomon Attaguin, a tall, 
dignified, finely formed old man, is chief among them, 
being postmaster, justice of the peace, and tavern 
keeper. He favored me with a clear and intelligent 
history of his people, differing little from the account 
given in the books, and entertained me with accounts 
of his own prowess in the hunt, and of the adventures of 
Boston sportsmen who had come down every autumn 
to hunt deer and wild fowl. It seemed odd to hear of 
stalking deer within sixty miles of Boston. 



CHAPTER XXII 

PROVINCETOWN 

TT is doubtful if another village can be found so 
-*■ sinned against by the literary guild as Provincetown. 
Three generations of writers have made it a target for 
their wit, and the place has come to be viewed by the 
outside world only through an atmosphere of metaphor 
and exaggerated description. Without question, there 
is much of the quaint and primitive in the village, and 
many elsewhere obsolete customs obtain, but I think 
the serious student in his study of the town will be 
moved not so much by his sense of the grotesque as by 
admiration for the courage and energy that founded 
and has sustained a village on this sand heap, miles 
away from any center of supplies. 

From Town Hill, an immense sand dune overtopping 
the village roofs, one gets an admirable idea of the 
town's isolated and exposed position. The summit 
of this hill is encircled by an iron fence, and, being well 
supplied with settees, makes a delightfully unique park, 
much ajffected by the townsmen. Looking east, the 
place is seen extending for three miles along the curve 
of a harbor, that, for perfect protection from wind and 



174 In Olde Massachusetts 

wave, is the wonder of the physicist. If one stretches 
out both arms, then curves right fingers, hand, and 
arm, bringing it within an inch of his outstretched left, 
he will describe the configuration of Provincetown 
Harbor — his right arm representing Long Point, the 
extreme tip of Cape Cod, and his body and left arm 
the north shore of the cape, trending toward the main 
land. The harbor has a depth of from three to four- 
teen fathoms, and is two miles in width. The town 
is an irregular mass of wooden buildings, built on the 
narrow beach, barely one hundred feet wide, which 
intervenes between the water and the sand-hills. Two 
narrow streets follow the trend of the coast, thickly 
lined with stores and dwellings. Until within a few 
years these streets were mere sand, through which horse 
and pedestrian waded toilsomely, but of late earth and 
gravel have been carted in and a solid roadbed formed, 
while a narrow plank-walk has been laid on one side 
of the street. Along the water-front the old town is 
seen in its purity; quaint, weather-beaten structures 
are here: cooper's shop, boat-shop, fish-house, ship- 
chandler's stores, commission offices, and in striking 
contrast the neatly-painted village hotel, built on piles 
over the bay, its favored guests lulled to sleep every 
night by the ripple of the waves. On the docks fisher- 
men are cleaning the morning's catch of mackerel, and 
"Bankers" just in are landing the spoil won from the 
Banks or stormy Labrador. In open spaces between 



Provincetown 175 

the docks long lines of dories are drawn up, nets are 
drying in the sun, and codfish are curing in flakes, or 
lie piled in immense heaps, waiting for the packer. 
The dwellings are nestled near the bases of the dunes: 
some homes of wealth and refinement, furnished with 
all modem appointments, some quaint and venerable; 
some hidden in trees and shrubber}^ others bare to the 
sun ; and some, in the Portuguese quarter, squalid and 
poverty-stricken. 

Looking landward from our hilltop, as far as the eye 
can reach, one sees an arid waste of sand heaped in 
curiously shaped hills, some covered with beach grass, 
some with scrub oak and stunted shrubs, others bare 
and white in the sunlight. It is hardly three miles 
across from Massachusetts Bay on the north to the 
Atlantic on the south. 

Nothing edible can be raised on these sand heaps. 
Provincetown cattle are fed on hay and grain imported 
from Boston. The butter, vegetables, and fruit on the 
hotel table come from far down the Cape. 

Nothing is indigenous but fish, and one's first query 
is how a town came to be founded at all on the further 
end of this desolate sand spit. It was the ocean, and 
above all the harbor, that gave it its excuse for being. 

Gosnold first discovered the harbor in 1602, and 
rested here several days, refitting his bark. Hendrik 
Hudson put in here in 1609, a few weeks before the 
discovery of the Hudson. In his journal, under date 



176 In Olde Massachusetts 

of June 15, 1609, he gives a quaint account of his dis- 
covery of a mermaid which will bear repeating: " Here," 
he says, "we saw a mermaid in the water, looking up 
earnestly at the men. From the waist up, her back and 
breasts like a woman's, her body as big as one of us, 
her skin very white, and long hair hanging down be- 
hind, of color black. In her going down they saw her 
tail, like the tail of a porpoise, and speckled like mack- 
erel." The harbor has a place on Captain John Smith's 
map of 1614 as Milford Haven. When the Mayflower 
was nearing the American coast she cast anchor here 
on the 11th of November, 1620. The men went ashore 
to explore, to talk with the Indians, and gather odorous 
woods — birch, sassafras, spruce — which then grew 
in abundance on the sand-hills; the women to do their 
washing at a spring of soft water that gushed out on the 
beach. Here the famous compact was signed and 
Peregrine White was born. The grave elders, however, 
saw no site for their town on these sands, and after a 
few days the Mayflower coasted along the shores of 
Cape Cod. The Pilgrims discovered vast schools of 
cod and other food fish in these waters, which was re- 
ported in England, and drew many vessels from thence 
which engaged in the fishery. Later colonial vessels 
resorted thither. Then a few fishermen built huts on the 
shore, the better to pursue their calling, and Province- 
town was founded. It was made a district in 1714, 
in connection with Truro, the adjoining town, and in 



Provincetown 177 

1727 was formed into a township, the inhabitants, from 
their exposed and perilous position, being exempted 
from taxation and military duty. By 1748, we are 
told, so many had removed or been lost at sea that only 
three houses were left. The census of 1764 makes no 
mention of it. Thirty-six families were reported in 
1776. Its experience in the war of 1812 will bear relat- 
ing. The fine harbor and good water caused it to be 
made a rendezvous for the British fleet during the entire 
war. Only a few weeks after war was declared a Brit- 
ish squadron, commanded by Commodore Hayes, 
dropped anchor in the harbor. For men to whom free 
egress to the ocean was indispensable to a livelihood 
this proceeding was most alarming. The Commodore, 
however, quickly divined their trouble, and sent them 
a permit allowing the fishing-boats to go out, on con- 
dition that the townsmen filled his casks with water. 
This was done, the boats coming in with full cargoes, 
and the old men and boys fiUing the water-casks and 
rolling them to the water's edge. But the shrewd 
fishermen were guilty of a trick which the Britons little 
suspected. The overplus of fish caught they pickled, 
then conveyed stealthily in their dories to Sandwich, 
hauled boats and cargoes across Cohasset Narrows 
with oxen, then launched them on Buzzard's Bay, and 
sped away to New London, New Haven, and even to 
New York, where they exchanged their fish for flour, 
sugar, and other necessaries, which were returned in 



178 In Olde Massachusetts 

the same manner to Provincetown. After the war the 
growth of the fisheries was rapid, and the town rose 
from a population of 812 in 1814 to 3,096 in 1855. The 
census of 1880 gives it a population of 4,443. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Martha's vineyard, 1882 

ONE summer day, in 1882, at the old whaling port 
of New Bedford, we boarded the steamer River 
Queen for the Vineyard. Our steamer we soon dis- 
covered to have a history, having been President 
Lincoln's despatch boat during the late war, and on 
board of her, at Hampton Roads, in that memo- 
rable February of 1865, he met the Peace Commis- 
sioners to arrange the terms of the great treaty. 
It was some satisfaction to know that the armchairs 
and other furniture of the cabin were the same used 
on that famous occasion. To-day the Queen ploughs 
the waves as sturdily as any craft of more prosaic 
antecedents. Our direction is nearly due east, across 
Buzzard's Bay. Land is in sight on all sides. 
Southward a great whaler looms up while making her 
offing. Another is coming in, escorted by a tug. A 
hundred sails fleck the bay. Fishing-boats, "held to 
the wind and slanting low," are trolling for bluefish 
and bass. The incoming Vineyard steamer sweeps by 
cityward, with a salute. The sky is as blue as the 
waves, and the salt sea-breeze exhilarates one like new 



180 In Olde Massachusetts 

wine. By and by — it is an hour and a half, to be 
exact — we approach the opposite shores — the EHza- 
beth Isles — and seem to be running directly upon 
them, when suddenly we veer to the west and enter a 
narrow passage that for its rocks, currents, and general 
intricacy must have been made solely for Captain Kidd 
and other freebooters. It connects Buzzard's Bay with 
Vineyard Sound. Jagged boulders rise perilously 
near the steamer, and the water rushes through with the 
velocity of a mill-race ; but our captain has never known 
an accident to occur here. 

Through this passage the steamer picks her way, 
stopping in the midst of it at Wood's Holl, terminus 
of the Wood's Holl branch of the Old Colony Railroad, 
to receive passengers from Boston to the Vineyard. 
Then it goes on, and a few moments later glides out 
into Vineyard Sound, and we see across its water, seven 
miles distant, a low, irregularly outlined island, whose 
salient features seem to be clay headlands, barren plains, 
and hills crowned with groves of stunted oaks. This 
is Martha's Vineyard, seen at its northern and most 
sparsely populated end. It is twenty miles long east 
and west, the captain tells us, and twelve in width. Its 
northern, western, and southern shores contain scarcely 
a hamlet, and but a few scattered farmers and fisher- 
men for inhabitants. The eastern shore is but a suc- 
cession of cottage cities — Vineyard Haven, Eastville 
Highlands, Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, and Katama. 



Martha's Vineyard 181 

Martha's Vineyard, so recently discovered by the 
moderns, is really quite venerable in history. That 
famous navigator, Bartholomew Gosnold, discovered it 
in 1602, saiHng southward from Cape Cod, and landing 
here to get water for his ships and provisions from the 
Indians. He found here trees, shrubs, and luxuriant 
grape-vines, and the natural inference is that he gave 
the island its peculiar name. But from the pleasant 
after-dinner talk of the antiquaries of the Corn Ex- 
change here in Edgartown, I gather that there is a differ- 
ent version of its origin. All these coast islands - so 
the legend runs — once belonged to a great magnate, 
who was blessed with four daughters. Dying, he gave 
Rhode Island to his daughter Rhoda, the Elizabeth Isles 
to Elizabeth, Martha's Vineyard to Martha. Here he 
died, and as to the fourth island, the last daughter Nan- 

took-it. 
• Most visitors to the Vineyard stop at Cottage City, ot 
which I shall speak more at length presently, but Edgar- 
town has proved more attractive to me. It is quaint, 
old-fashioned, wealthy, conservative, one of the oldest 
towns on the continent, for it has been well established 
by the village antiquarians, that a famous recluse, 
Martin Pring, landed here seventeen years before the 
coming of the Pilgrims, and here lived, a settled inhabi- 
tant, from June until August. No permanent settle- 
ment was effected, however, until 1642, when Thomas 
Mayhew founded a colony here, and in 1671 succeeded 



182 In Olde Massachusetts 

in having it incorporated a town by the Government 
of New York, with himself as Governor. The town 
was one of the earhest ports to engage in the whale 
fishery; indeed, the islanders have a saying that it was 
founded on the backs of the whales it captured. The 
delightful old mansions that line its streets were gained 
in this way; and the portly, well-preserved old gentle- 
men, who live in them, and who retail such pleasant 
marine gossip and old-time sea tales in the Corn Ex- 
change of a morning, were the men who pushed the 
enterprise forty years ago. It has a fine harbor and 
an abundance of pure water, and was a famous resort 
for Nantucket whalemen in other days. The town is 
very proud, too, of its record in the v/ar of the Revolu- 
tion and in that of 1812. Its exposed position sub- 
jected it to frequent descents from the enemy. On the 
10th of September, 1778, for instance, the frigate Scor- 
pion burned in its harbor one brig of 150 tons, one 
schooner of seventy tons, and twenty-two whale-boats, 
and captured in the town 388 stand of arms, with bay- 
onets, pouches, powder, and lead. The enemy also 
took from the farmers of the vicinity at various times 
300 oxen and 10,000 sheep. The town is also the capital 
of the island, being the county-seat of Duke County, 
which embraces the Vineyard and Elizabeth Isles, and 
is fully conscious of the dignity of its position. The 
Vineyard affords some striking contrasts. Here in 
Edgartown are old houses built by governors, judges, 



Martha's Vineyard 183 

and elders two centuries ago, and in the Uttle private 
burial-places are headstones of these worthies quite as 
mossy and venerable. In fifteen minutes, taking the 
little narrow-gage railway that skirts the eastern shore, 
you stand in busy, bustling Cottage City, fresh from 
the builder's hands, a center of modern activity. 

This city might be aptly characterized as a modern 
miracle. To-day fifty thousand people are gathered 
in its cottages. Six weeks hence there will not remain 
as many hundreds. Twenty years ago it was repre- 
sented by a few tents. To-day it has avenues with 
cottages, public parks and drives, concrete streets, miles 
of shops, a horse railroad, hotels, churches, schools of 
fame, a Board of Health, a Fire Department, a city 
charter, and other municipal conveniences and privi- 
leges. The town is built on ground that rises gently 
from the shores of Vineyard Sound, and is prettily laid 
out in avenues, squares, circles, triangles, and parks. 
The cottages are ranged along the side of the street in 
most cases as thickly as hives in an apiary, and present 
all gradations, from the tent-roofed cot to the ornate 
Elizabethan villa. The shops have a quarter to them- 
selves; the great hotels are on or near the beach. 

One cannot be said to have fairly seen cottage life 
until he has visited this summer city. A walk through 
one of its streets afl^ords the stranger a novel experience. 
It may be Pequot, Massasoit, Hiawatha, Acushnet, 
Pocasset, Samoset, or Tuckernuck Avenues that you 



184 In Olde Massachusetts 

take, for all these names, and many others of aboriginal 
origin, are found in the city. It begins at one of the 
circles, and curves about gracefully between grass-plots 
and flower-beds, and beneath young oaks, until it 
debouches on one of the parks. The first cottage you 
meet is of the simplest kind, perhaps, known here as 
" tent- roofed," and, the curtains in front being drawn 
to admit air, its internal arrangements can be studied 
to advantage. They seem to be intended entirely for 
sleeping. Each apartment is separated from the other 
by curtains, and is furnished with carpet, chairs, wash- 
stand, and a dimity-clad cot at each side. Kitchen 
and dining-room are invisible, and you are forced to the 
conclusion that the occupants take their meals at the 
boarding-houses. Cottages in every variety of style — 
Chinese pagoda, Greek villa, modern Elizabethan — 
succeed as you pass along, and quite likely you will 
find, fronting the park, a fine country seat, with all city 
conveniences, there being several of these on the island. 
The cottagers are seated in front of their dwellings, 
recline on couches, or swing in hammocks, under the 
oaks. Here, as at other summer resorts, a dearth 
of gentlemen is apparent, the fair sex greatly pre- 
dominating. It is a mild form of dissipation that 
obtains here. Lectures, sacred concerts, and camp- 
meetings are the chief. There are billiard saloons, 
bowling alleys, bicycle clubs, and a great roller-skat- 
ing rink, but no liquor shops or gambling dens. Fish- 



Martha's Vineyard 185 

ing, sailing, driving, bathing, and tea-drinking are 
popular. 

The social and religious features of Cottage City have 
been often dwelt on : a sketch of its marvelous develop- 
ment will perhaps have more of the merit of novelty. 
The city is divided into three principal sections — 
Wesleyan Grove, Oak Bluffs, and Vineyard Highlands 
— which began as little centers of population and spread 
until they now form a corporate whole. Wesleyan 
Grove, the oldest, had its inception at a Methodist 
camp-meeting held on its site in 1835. At this meeting 
there were a rude shed for the preacher's stand, rough 
planks for seats, and only nine tents, furnished with 
straw, for lodgings and shelter. Thomas C. Pierce, 
father of the late editor of Z {oil's Herald, presided, 
and there were about a thousand persons present. 
Since that time, with the single exception of 1845, an 
annual "camp" has been held here. In 1841, twenty 
tents were reported. In 1844 three thousand persons 
were present. In 1850, a lease of the Grove, running 
till 1861, was secured, at an annual rental of thirty dol- 
lars. In 1853 there were four thousand persons 
present. In 1855 two hundred tents were pitched in 
the grove, and two steamboats made daily trips from 
New Bedford. Sunday, 1858, was a red-letter day. 
Twelve thousand persons were present, including 
Governor Banks, of Massachusetts, ex-Governor 
Harris, of Rhode Island, several members of Congress, 



186 In Olde Massachusetts 

and more than one hundred ministers of various 
denominations. In 1859 the grove began its meta- 
morphosis from a camp to a permanent city. Tliis 
year Perez Mason, a wealthy layman, of Providence, 
erected a cottage in the grove and spent the summer 
there with his family. Other laymen built other cot- 
tages, following his example, and from this humble 
beginning Cottage City has sprung. The annual camp- 
meeting is still held in a grove of venerable oaks, a few 
minutes' walk from the Oak Bluffs wharf, generally 
during the latter part of August. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

NORTHAMPTON 

NORTHAMPTON — Jenny Lind's paradise, the 
only corollary Fanny Kemble could find to her 
beloved Lenox — is spread all over one of the foot-hills 
of the Connecticut valley : it is an anomaly among country 
towns. Its main street is not a street at all, but a park, 
a plaza, a common, reaching from the river bottom to 
the summit of the hill. Its buildings have none of that 
air of having been hastily thrown together which char- 
acterizes those of modern towns. Each house has its 
lawn in front, its trim box- wood walks and shrubbery; 
one sees scarcely an untidy, ill-kept place in the town. 
The wide valley of the Connecticut is above and below; 
in front, across the river, rises the hoary head of Mount 
Holyoke, and opposite him, overtopping us, is Mount 
Tom, not quite so high, but fully as rugged. A good 
carriage road ascends Mount Holyoke to within 600 
feet of the summit, whence a railway completes the 
ascent. Arrived at the summit one finds a comfortable 
summer hotel and a noble view. The Connecticut 
crawls lazily through its meadows for miles beneath. 
You can see the smoke of Springfield's furnaces seven- 



188 In Olde Massachusetts 

teen miles to the southward; half a score of villages, 
some alive with looms and spindles, some drowsily 
nodding under century-old elms, are within the range 
of vision. 

There is Holyoke, with its great paper-mills, and 
Easthampton, in the shadow of Mount Tom, with its 
famous boys' school and its shaded main street, which 
I once heard a party of tourists comparing with that of 
Easthampton, L. I. Manufactories are crowding in 
there now to disturb its quiet, scholarly air. Here in 
Hadley, which lies just across the Connecticut from 
Northampton, Dr. Holland laid the scene of " Kathrina," 
and there is still left material for many a poem and 
romance. The glory of old Hadley is its elms. Wide- 
spreading and ancient, they enclose an oval-shaped 
common nearly a mile long, of quiet, sohtary beauty. 
All the grown-up sons and daughters are away in 
the cities. The narrow avenue formed by the double 
row of elms on the west side of the park seemed 
to us beautiful enough to often allure them back to 
the town of their birth. In South Hadley is a famous 
female seminary, whose graduates have had a notable 
habit of becoming missionaries' wives. Amherst, with her 
spires and college buildings, peeps out among the hills 
but eight miles away. If we turn our eyes westward, 
they rest on the noble Berkshire Hills, and further 
north on the Hoosac range, walling in the valleys of 
the Housatonic, the Deerfield and the Hoosac. 



Northampton 189 

Amid all these villages Northampton is preeminent. 
The artist or author finds here an exceedingly con- 
genial atmosphere. Here is no hurry, no rush for 
wealth or place. Almost every householder is but- 
tressed with a substantial bank account, and at leisure 
to devote himself to art, to local history, to gossip, or 
to any occupation to which his tastes incline. An air 
reflective, historical, pervades the town. Much atten- 
tion is paid to genealogy and antiquities. Visit any 
of these fine old houses, and you find family legends 
and relics carefully treasured. The visitor is not long 
here before he learns that Jonathan Edwards made his 
first essays at preaching in the town, and he is taken 
down King Street to see the site of the home he inhabited 
for twenty-three years, with its hoary elm in front, in 
the fork of which the divine wrote some of his wonder- 
ful sermons; then you are led back to the main street 
and up the hill to look on the Edwards Church, a some- 
what imposing edifice that now occupies the site of the 
plain meeting-house in which he delivered them. 
Edwards left his tutorship in Yale College in the winter 
of 1726 to become the colleague of his maternal grand- 
father, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, who had become 
too infirm to perform alone the duties of his office. I 
heard some pleasant gossip of this family — the Stod- 
dards — which will bear repeating. 

"The Rev. Solomon Stoddard, Edwards's grand- 
father," said my informant, "was the fourth pastor 



190 In Olde Massachusetts 

of Northampton. His wife, Mrs. Esther Stoddard, 
when he married her, was the widow of the Rev. 
Eleazer Mather, his predecessor in the sacred office. 
They reared a somewhat remarkable family of girls. 
The oldest, Mary, married the Rev. Stephen Mix, 
the promising pastor of a neighboring charge. Their 
courtship was a novel one, even for that day. He 
proposed for her to her father, and suggested that she 
should take due time for consideration. She did so, 
and after several weeks wrote the following laconic 
note: 

"'November, 1695. 

"'Rev. Stephen Mix: 

Yes. Mary Stoddard.' 



(C i 



"The second daughter, Esther, who had been well 
educated at Boston, married the Rev. Timothy 
Edwards, of East Windsor, Conn., with whom she 
lived happily for sixty-three years. Of their eleven 
children, all but one were girls, and that one boy be- 
came the celebrated divine, Jonathan Edwards. I 
once saw a letter written by Mrs. Stoddard, his grand- 
mother, to his mother at the time of his birth, which 
interested me so much that I copied it. Here it is : 

"'Dear Daughter: God be thanked for yr safe 
delivery and raising you up to health again. We are 
under mixt dispensations; We have a great deal of 




? M 



w o 
2 <U 






Northampton 191 

mercy, and we have smart afflictions. EHakim is not, 
and Eunice is not, and it hath pleased God to take 
away your dear brother Israel also, who was taken by 
the French and carried to a place called Brest in France, 
and being ready to be transported to England died 
there. 

"'P.S. I would have sent you half a thousand of 
pins and a porringer of marmalade if I had an oppor- 
tunity.' 

" Four other daughters married clergymen, but there 
was nothing in their courtships or wedded lives so 
marked as to attract the notice of the gossips. North- 
ampton, by the way, has been very generous to minis- 
ters in pursuit of helpmates. A local annalist has 
discovered that between 1673 and 1879, eighty-four 
Northampton ladies married clergymen. 

"During Edwards's pastorate a very affecting inci- 
dent occurred in the death, at the parsonage on King 
Street, of David Brainerd, the devoted young mission- 
ary to the Indians. The young man was the friend 
and protege of the great metaphysician, as well as the 
accepted lover of his daughter Jerusha, and as he was 
friendless, nothing was more natural than that he should 
be taken in his last illness into the family of his friend. 
In the breast of Jerusha Edwards he had inspired a 
passionate attachment. From the 25th of July, 1747, 
till his death, on the 9th of October, she watched over 



192 In Olde Massachusetts 

him with the most tender assiduity, and survived him 
but four months, hterally dying, the gossips aver, of a 
broken heart." 

An incident, related as occurring at the close of the 
Revolution, sounds like a travesty on some modem 
events. The treaty of peace with Great Britain in 
1781 was celebrated in Northampton after the simple 
custom of the day, by a sermon from the Rev. Mr. 
Spring, and by a festive gathering in the evening, at 
which, we are told, "much decent mirth and hilarity 
prevailed, but from which the ladies were rigidly ex- 
cluded." What curtain lectures the luckless members 
of the party were treated to that night is not on record, 
but the ladies were far too excited and indignant to 
allow the matter to pass over with only private repro- 
bation. They held a tea-drinking next day, and after 
drinking loyally to the health of Madam Washington 
and to Congress, they introduced a series of toasts of 
which these are examples: "Reformation to our Hus- 
bands," " May Gentlemen and Ladies ever Unite on 
Joyful Occasions," " Happiness and Prosperity to our 
Families," " May Reformed Husbands ever find Obe- 
dient Wives." In fact, the aggrieved ladies carried 
things with such high hand that their meeting became 
the talk of a wide circle of towns, and led one of the 
poets of the day to satirize it in some highly impertinent 
verses. 

The old cemetery at Northampton well repays a visit. 



Northampton 193 

It is a pretty place at the end of the main street, near 
the river, shaded by a few native pines, most of its 
tombstones bearing the quaint form and pious inscrip- 
tions of a long-buried generation. Two of the most 
interesting plots are on the west side. A granite monu- 
ment, in one recently erected, bears this inscription: 

"President Jonathan Edwards, 

Born Oct. 5, 1703, 

Died March 22, 1758. 

"Sarah Pierrepont, his wife. 
Born Jan. 9, 1709, 
Died Oct. 2, 1758." 

A similar stone stands in the adjoining lot, and bears 
this inscription: 

"Timothy Dwight, 
Born May 27, 1726, 
Died May 10, 1777. 

"Mary Edwards, wife of 

Timothy Dwight, born 

April 4th, 1734, died 

Feb. 28, 1807." 

Turning to the more modern aspects of the town, 
we observe in the public libraries and in Smith College 
interesting exponents of the culture of which wc have 



194 In Olde Massachusetts 

spoken. The library, comprising some 18,000 weli- 
chosen volumes, is comfortably housed in the elegant 
Memorial Hall, erected by the town in 1869-70, at a 
cost of $25,000, in memory of its soldiers slain in the 
civil war. In the vestibule of this Hall are marble 
tablets bearing the names of those who fell in the war, 
and above is the main library-room, with a capacity of 
100,000 volumes, with reception and reference rooms 
on either hand. The shelves would have been filled 
ere this but for the fact that the library fund of $40,000 
was stolen in the famous robbery of the Northampton 
National Bank in 1876, and has never been recovered. 



CHAPTER XXV 

HISTORIC DEERFIELD 

1P\EERFIELD in its early days had the misfortune 
•*-^ of being sixteen miles nearer Canada than 
Northampton and the other border settlements along 
the Connecticut; it vv'as also situated at the mouth of a 
deep valley which was the great highway of the French 
and Indians in their incursions into New England; 
hence nearly all the watching and warding, the forays, 
massacres, burnings, and taking into captivity of those 
bloody colonial days occurred here. The valley to-day 
is the picture of peace and plenty. The Deerfield, 
after brawling for its entire course over a rocky bed 
between frowning mountain walls, here opens into a 
smiling valley at least three miles wide and six or eight 
in length, near the mouth of which is planted a village 
as pretty and interesting as the traveler can easily find. 
It contains perhaps fifty dwellings of all sorts, ranged 
on both sides of a wide elm-shaded street. The vil- 
lagers are chiefly descendants of the early settlers, 
become well-to-do, in the course of years, from the 
increase of their fields. 
That the town should remain so pastoral and simple 



196 In Olde Massachusetts 

is surprising, for the valley is one of the great highways 
of travel. Yet the old place remains as the fathers 
left it, a repository for the memories of the past; in- 
deed, retrospection is one of its chief features. 

This spirit led the people of the valley some years 
ago to organize a Memorial Association, and in due 
time to procure a Memorial Hall and store it with an 
exceptionally complete and valuable collection of relics 
of the colonial and Revolutionary era. The hall is a 
large brick structure, standing well out of the village, 
near the railway station. Originally it served as the 
Deerfield Academy, and was a famous school in its 
day. But in 1877-8 the Academy Corporation secured 
a new and more elegant building in the village, and the 
old academy was wisely deeded to the Memorial 
Association for museum purposes. The work of re- 
moving the relics and heirlooms of the past from the 
valley homes where they had been carefully treasured 
was at once begun, and has since occupied the attention 
of the Association. This collection is certainly the 
most complete and interesting that has come under 
the writer's notice. It is readily resolved into three 
classes : mementoes of the Valley Indians, colonial and 
Revolutionary relics. On the stout, oaken door is a 
placard informing the visitor that on Mondays and 
alternate days through the week an admission fee of 
twenty-five cents is charged, other days being free. We 
mention the fact, that the intending visitor may choose 



Historic Deerfield 197 

a " pay day " for his visit, for the Association needs the 
admission fee and merits it. 

We register in the visitors' book in the hall and step 
into a large room on the right, devoted chiefly to the 
Indian remains. In the center of the room a huge 
oaken door, nail-studded, with sill and lintel, and 
heavy uprights complete, attracts the attention, and 
inspecting it closely one perceives that it is the outer 
door of an old colonial house, and discovers deep cuts 
in its upper surface, and in one place a large, ragged 
hole, evidently made by axe or tomahawk. This door 
belonged to the old "Indian house" erected by Ensign 
(afterward Captain) John Sheldon, who settled in 
Deerfield in 1684, and through this aperture one morn- 
ing the Captain's wife was shot and killed as she was 
rising from bed. On the other side, suspended by a 
small wire, we may find the round, battered ball that 
killed her. This door rightly viewed is rather a start- 
ling piece of furniture. It carries us back nearly two 
hundred years to that morning of February 29, 1704, 
when a band of French and Indians sprang out of the 
forest upon the little village. That was in the time of 
the bloody French and Indian wars. The village was 
surrounded by a stockade, with block-houses at inter- 
vals in which sentinels were posted on the lookout for 
an enemy. On the evening of the 28th that enemy, 
340 strong, after a march of over two hundred miles from 
Canada through deep snows, slipped into hiding in a pine 



198 In Olde Massachusetts 

forest about two miles north of the village. Soon after 
midnight, finding the crust hard enough to bear them, 
they began their descent on the village, advancing a 
few yards, then stopping, that the sentinels might mis- 
take the noise of their approach for a wandering wind 
or the sighing of trees. On the southeast corner of 
the stockade the snow had banked as hifrh as the 
top of the palisades, and over this the enemy rushed 
and were hurrying through the village, torch in hand, 
ere the sentinels could give the alarm. In most cases 
those who surrendered were taken captive, those who 
resisted or attempted escape were killed. Among the 
first houses attacked was this old house of Ensiffn 
Sheldon, the strongest in the village, but the barred 
oaken door resisted their attempts to force it. The 
Rev. John Williams, the village pastor, was awakened 
by the Indians bursting in the door of his house. He 
and his wife were seized; two of his children, with a 
negro servant, were killed before their eyes, and they, 
with the remaining five children, were added to the 
group of prisoners — one hundred and twelve in all 
— which the various detachments collected. When 
all were gathered the whole company moved off over 
the snowy meadows, leaving the village in flames, and 
forty-seven of its people dead in the streets. On the 
morning of the second day's march, the band being 
only six or seven miles north of Deerfield, Mrs. 
Williams, weak from maternal pains, became ex- 



Historic Deerfield 199 

hausted, and was slain at the foot of a little hill on 
Green River. 

The summer the Memorial Association held its 
eighth field meeting on this spot it erected a granite 
monument to mark the scene of the tragedy. You 
may be interested by the inscription, which reads as 
follows : 

" The cruel and Bloodthirsty savage who took her, 
slew her with his hatchet at one stroke." 

" The Rev. John Williams, ' the Redeemed Captive,' 
so wrote of his wife, Mrs. Eunice Williams, who was 
killed at this place March 1, 1704. 

" Erected by the Pocomtuck Valley Memorial Asso- 
ciation." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

PITTSFIELD, A HOME OF POETS, 1885 

piTTSFIELD, in the valley of the Housatonic, 
"*■ chiefly interested us from its intimate connection 
with two of the most honored names in American 
literature — the poets Longfellow and Holmes. East 
Street, a fine old thoroughfare leading north from the 
public square, contains the old Appleton mansion, 
the girlhood home of Henry W. Longfellow's wife, the 
abode of the poet for several summers, and the abiding 
place of the famous "old clock on the stairs," which 
suggested one of his best-known poems. 

The place long since went out of the family, but has 
been little changed ; the " antique portico " of the poet's 
day has given place to a modest little porch, and the 
two Balm of Gilead trees that once shaded it have been 
cut down, but the poplars and elms and the broad 
lawn are still there. Within, a monkish old clock 
still stands on the landing "half-way up the stairs," 
although truth compels one to state that it is not 
the poet's monitor, that having followed the family 
fortunes to Boston; but one may see in the parlor 
the figured wall paper purchased by a member of the 



Pittsfield, a Home of Poets 201 

family in Paris during the war of 1812, and, in the 
absence of paper-hangers, put on by the ladies of 
the household. One does not realize until he learns the 
traditions of the old house how literal is the poem with 
which it is identified. The house is said to have been 
built by Thomas Gold, an ancestor of the poet's wife 
and a descendant of the Golds of Fairfield — a famous 
family in Connecticut annals. He came to Pittsfield 
while a young man to engage in the practice of the 
law. Of great natural ability and pleasing address, 
he soon became the leading man of the village, in church 
and state as well as in his profession. While his for- 
tunes were at the flood he built this mansion, and soon 
after brought from a neighboring towTi a beautiful and 
accomplished woman to be its mistress. In that time 
the house was noted for its " free-hearted hospitality " — 

" Its great fires up the chimney roared, 
The stranger feasted at its board." 

It became a rallying point for the worth and wit 
and beauty of western Massachusetts. When he was 
in middle life trouble came to the master of the man- 
sion: it was whispered in the village that too profuse 
hospitality had impaired his fortune. The world 
looked coldly on its former favorite, bandied reflections 
on his good name, and one moniing was startled to 
hear that he had been found dead in his bed. A 
daughter had married a wealthy Boston merchant, and 



202 In Olde Massachusetts 

when her daughter grew to beautiful womanhood she 
became the wife of Longfellow while yet his laurels 
were all unwon. This is the village story of the old 
mansion. The house was a favorite haunt of both 
the poet and his wife, and while it remained in the 
family most of their summers were spent here. One 
sees how naturally the poem connected with it assumed 
form in the poet's summer-day musings. The village 
street, the ancient country seat, the tall and ghostly 
poplars, the wizard old clock, its recording hands, the 
feasts, the births, the dreaming youths and maids, the 
bridals, the funerals — every picture conjured up by 
the poet's rhymes once existed here. It is not always 
one can trace so minutely the growth of a fine poem in 
the master's mind. 

Doctor Holmes became identified with Pittsfield 
through his mother's family, the Wendells. Quite 
early, it is said, Jacob Wendell, of Boston, purchased 
of the Indians nearly the entire tract on which Pitts- 
field now stands, and built a dwelling on the purchase, 
which remained in the family name until within a few 
years past. The Autocrat, thus introduced to Pitts- 
field through his family connections at an early age, 
some time after his marriage built a pleasant country 
house on a little elevation some two miles east of the 
town that had once formed a part of his ancestor's 
estate. Here he spent the summers of seven years, 
writing, it is said, a large part of the 'Autocrat of the 



Pittsfield, a Home of Poets 203 

Breakfast Table ' and several of his best-known poems, 
and leaving it at last of necessity and with regret. In 
proof of Doctor Holmes's regard for Pittsfield, we were 
shown the following characteristic passage from a 
letter written to a friend in this city : " I can never 
pay my debt to Pittsfield for giving my children their 
mother, and myself seven blessed seasons, and seventy 
times seven granaries full of hoarded reminiscences." 

From the old Appleton place, in town, we walked 
out one morning to the poet's former home. Down 
East Street, and then a sudden turn to the right, and we 
came soon to the outskirts of the city and to the Housa- 
tonic, or rather one of its branches, brimful, and here 
degraded to the duty of turning the mill-wheel of a 
tannery. Pusliing on tlirough green fields, at a black- 
smith shop we made another sharp turn to the right, 
and a mile further on crossed the main body of the 
Housatonic. From this point a five minutes' walk 
brings one to the gate giving access to the grounds, 
which are quite extensive. The house has little to 
distinguish it, but is beautifully situated on a little 
eminence commanding a view of the meadows and river 
to the city, and of the all-encircling mountains. 

The property is now owned by a gentleman of New 
York, who has slightly remodeled the interior. We 
were kindly shown the Hbrary in which the poet wrote, 
but nothing further remains to remind one of his 
occupancy. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

WILLIAMSTOWN THE BEAUTIFUL, 1885 

UNDER the maples that shade WilHamstown 
Street, one looks out on wide, green meadows 
hemmed in by a circle of frowning mountains save 
where the Hoosac has broken through the barrier to 
continue its course to the Hudson. The little valley is 
hopelessly entangled in these bold peaks, broken spurs 
of the Green Mountains, rising abruptly without order 
or system. Nothing is plainer to the loiterer under 
the maples than that nature meant an eternal seclusion 
here; but man's great end is to circumvent nature, and 
up the valley, five miles away, he has cut a tunnel 
through the most formidable hill and made the valley 
one of the nation's highways. 

Yet, spite of the innovation, we fail to see that the 
old town has lost any of its rural beauty or tranquillity. 
West College and East College, though surrounded by 
smarter and more esthetic structures, are as firmly 
seated, as piquant and interesting as ever. There is a 
novelty and beauty in this park-like main street of 
Williamstown which you will find nowhere else. And 
there is that in the origin and history of Williams Col- 



Williamstown the Beautiful 205 

lege which is not embodied in the history of any of our 
institutions of learning. Musing under the shades 
and wandering tlirough the old halls instinct with 
young life and high hopes and endeavors, Ephraim 
Williams's foresight and self -sacrifice appear in their 
fullest scope and significance. Too many men devote 
themselves to the fighting of battles and the material 
development of the country; too few found univer- 
sities and endow scholarships. This man, in a rude 
age, suggesting and founding an institution so bene- 
ficent and so successful, seems the ideal hero of his 
time. 

The annalists have preserved the history of the Col- 
lege so perfectly that one may pass leisurely down the 
years, and without effort observe the salient features 
and more striking incidents. 

It is not until the French and Indian war of 1744 
that Captain Ephraim Williams, one of the leading 
citizens of the Province, coming into the valley to build 
Fort Massachusetts, the westernmost of a chain of forts 
which Massachusetts has ordered for the defense of 
her frontiers, discovers the valley. Charmed with its 
beauty and fertility, at the close of the war he succeeded 
in inducing the Legislature to organize in the valley 
two townships of six miles square, to be called the east 
and west townships of Hoosac. There was a hamlet 
of eleven souls in the valley when, in the spring of 1755, 
war with the French and Indians again broke out, and 



206 In Olde Massachusetts 

Captain, now Colonel, Williams marched away at the 
head of the Hampshire Regiment to join in Johnson's 
expedition against Crown Point. On the 8th of Sep- 
tember, 1755, Williams fell in battle with Dieskau's 
forces, near the head of Lake George, and on the 
administering of his estate a will was found, which, 
after a few minor bequests, gave the bulk of his property 
"for the support and maintenance of a free school in 
the township west of Fort Massachusetts," provided 
that townsliip remained a part of the Massachusetts 
Colony, and was erected at a proper time into a town 
to be called Williamstown. Such was the modest 
origin of the College and the village. 

It was fortunate that the bequest came into the hands 
of wise and judicious trustees, for it had to be nursed 
carefully for a generation before it became at all ade- 
quate to the purpose designed. At length, in the year 
1785, the colonies which Colonel Williams died for 
having become free and independent States, the trus- 
tees, reinforced by a public subscription of $2,000, and 
further buttressed by a lottery which yielded ,£1,037, 
began the erection of West College, which still remains 
strong and serviceable, to show how well men builded 
in those days. In this building the school opened 
October 20, 1791, with the Rev. Ebenezer Fitch, who 
had been a tutor at Yale, as principal, and Mr. John 
Lester as assistant. The school was really a college 
from the beginning. In its academical department. 



Williamstown the Beautiful 207 

the studies usually taught in the colleges of the clay 
were pursued, and in its free school, graduates of the 
common school were instructed in the higher branches 
of English. There was no lack of students from the 
beginning, and in 1793 the trustees were emboldened 
to procure an act of Legislature incorporating the free 
school as a college, by the name of Williams College. 
The same act bestowed $4,000 for the purchase of a 
library and other necessary apparatus. Thus gradually 
and with some effort the College was established on a 
firm basis, and began its work of beneficence. Some 
incidents of its early history give us pleasant glimpses 
of the social customs of the day. There was the Com- 
mencement dinner, provided for by one of the earliest 
acts of the trustees, at which the President, Trustees, 
and officers of the College, with such other gentlemen 
as the President might invite, were appointed guests. 
For many years the annual Commencements con- 
tinued to be the great days not only of the village, but 
of the region roundabout. 

Almost any sunny day one may see under these shades 
a venerable form who is recognized as the central figure 
in the annals of Williams — ex-President Mark Hop- 
kins. It will be fifty years in 1886 since he became 
President of the Collejre, and although the burden of 
years caused him in 1872 to resign the Presidency, he 
still fills the chairs of Christian Theology and of Moral 
and Intellectual Philosophy, and is a counselor of 



208 In Olde Massachusetts 

weight in all the affairs of the College. Much of what 
is distinctive and beneficent — and there is much of it — 
in the atmosphere of Williams to-day is admittedly due 
to this long administration of President Hopkins. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN 

rriHE glory of the Stockbridge landscape is Monu- 
-*- ment Mountain, a mountain so famed in poetry, 
and so enwreathed in dim tradition and antiquarian 
lore, that no visitor to the town feels at liberty to depart 
without making its acquaintance. The best point in the 
village from which to view it is the level plateau in the 
rear of the Congregational Church. It is there seen 
rising above the level meadows of the Housatonic, a 
bold, defiant, rugged mass of quartz rock, throwTi up 
by some giant upheaval of nature, and left to charm the 
lovers of the picturesque and excite the speculation of 
the curious. 

The mountain is peculiar in its conformation; nearly 
all its brothers, and there are many of them in this 
region of hills and mountains, are round topped, and 
covered quite to their summits with a large growth of 
forest trees; but the summit of Monument Mountain 
is bold and barren of verdure, broken and fissured, and 
furnished with " incredible pinnacles " that prick into 
the blue heavens. It is not an easy matter to climb 
these jagged masses, but when the feat is accomplished 



210 In Olde INIassachusetts 

one of the most charming views imaginable rewards the 
effort. All about us are 

" The bare old cliffs. 
Huge pillars that in middle heaven upbear 
Their weather-beaten capitals; here dark 
With moss, the growth of centuries, and there 
Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt 
Has splintered them." 

Below is the valley of the Housatonic with the beau- 
tiful river itself winding through its emerald fields, in 
appearance like a ribbon of silver unrolled, and which 
may be traced almost to its source thirty miles away 
beyond the Lenox hills. Westward is the beautiful 
Stockbridge plain, nestled at the feet of its guardian 
mountains and bearing on its bosom the pretty village 
with its white cottages peeping shyly out from amid its 
green foliage, and its beautful villas that occupy com- 
manding positions on its dominating hills. In any direc- 
tion one may look are farms and farmhouses, and herds 
of sleek cattle grazing up to their eyes in the lush grass for 
which these mountain slopes are famous. In view are a 
score of heavily wooded mountains and as many coun- 
try villages, their white steeples peering out over the 
tree tops in places where no one would suspect a village 
to exist. 

The mountain derives its name from a curious pillar 
on its southern slope, raised by the Indians for some 
unknown purpose, which was still standing when the 



Ij 




M, % 


• 


Rkm^ 




' Hs^ a ^^^B^^^^^^HiV^ 




' "^- -^'^^iil 


. -t 3l,.^5^ 






►^ 

^ 


■- •' ' ■■ V^'^-^^ 


V 










,i . . y. "-. ■A- ,• . 


|fTj^<J|^HHB^^B|^, '^^^^^^^1 


^^BSBmI^Iv^^'^Bw 


^^^^H^^^hI^^k^H^Kw^^hBc 


n^MHHnR^M^^^-i^^^^^i^^^H 


^KBBSSHtKu^^^SKf 


'ISSRnr^PISHHHH 



The Stonk Face on Monument Mountain, Stockbridge 



Monument Mountain 211 

white men first came to this region. There are many 
traditions extant as to the origin of this pillar. 
Bryant, who was familiar with the mountain, has voiced 
the popular tradition in his beautiful poem called 
"Monument Mountain," a poem so familiar to all 
that I need give but the briefest possible paraphrase: 
In early days a beautiful Indian maiden was so unfortu- 
nate as to fall in love with her cousin — a love deemed 
illegal by these stem tribes. She struggled long with 
her unfortunate passion, but in vain; at length over- 
come with despair and shame she climbed one day the 
dizzy height of this mountain precipice accompanied 
only by a friend, " a playmate of her young and innocent 
years." On the verge of the precipice the friends sat 
down and 

" Sang all day old songs of love and death, 
And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, 
And prayed that safe and swift might be her way 
To the calm world of sunshine where no grief 
Makes the heart heavy and the eyeUds red." 

And then — 

" When the sun grew low, 
And the hill shadows long, she threw herself 
From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped 
Upon the mountain's southern slope a grave, 
And there they laid her in the very garb 
With which the maiden decked herself for death. 
And o'er the mould that covered her the tribe 
Built up a simple monument — a cone 
Of small loose stones. * * * " 



212 In Olde Massachusetts 

But since Bryant wrote the antiquaries have been 
busy, and they say that the legend is only a beautiful 
myth after all — a simple impossibility, in fact, since it 
was not the custom of the River Indians to commemo- 
rate either men or events by the erection of memorial 
piles. As to the real origin or use of the pillar much 
legendary lore has been gathered, which would be found 
vastly interesting no doubt, but of which I can only 
give an epitome. 

As early as 1735 one of the early explorers, writing 
from Indiantown, thus refers to the monument: 

" Some say it is raised over the first sachem who died 
after the Indians came into this region. Each Indian, 
as he goes by, adds a stone to the pile; but Captain 
Konkapot (chief of the Housatonicks) tells me it marks 
the boundary of land agreed on in a treaty with the 
Mohawks, the Mohawks being entitled to all land within 
a day's journey of the pile." 

The Rev. John Sergeant, on the occasion of his first 
visit to the Stockb ridge Indians, in 1734, passed by the 
monument, and thus refers to it: 

" There is a large heap of stones — I suppose ten 
cartloads — in the way to Waahtukook, which the 
Indians have thrown together as they passed by the 
place, for it used to be their custom every time any one 
passed by to tlirow a stone at it. But what was the 
end of it they cannot tell ; only they say their fathers used 
to do so, and they do it because it was the custom of 



Monument Mountain 213 

their fathers. But Ebenezer (the Indian interpreter) 
says he supposes it is designed to be an expression of 
their gratitude to the Supreme Being that He had pre- 
served them to see the place again." 

Another tradition is to the effect that on one occasion 
the territory of the Muhhekunnucks was invaded by a 
powerful enemy from the West; that the Muhhekun- 
nucks laid an ambush for their enemies in this moun- 
tain and defeated them there with great slaughter, and 
that tliis pile was raised to commemorate the event. 
But the writer who has treated of the subject most at 
length was the Rev. Gideon Haw ley of Mashpee, Mass., 
for some time a missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, 
whose knowledge of Indian rites and customs was not 
inconsiderable. 

In his missionary tours he discovered several of these 
monuments and thus describes them: 

" We came to a resting-place, breathed our horses, 
and slaked our thirst at a stream, when we perceived 
our Indian looking for a stone which he cast to a heap 
that had for ages been accumulated by passengers like 
him who was our guide. We inquired why he observed 
this rite. His answer was that his fathers had prac- 
tised it and enjoined it on him; but he did not like to 
talk on the subject. I have observed in every part of 
the country, among every tribe of Indians, and among 
those where I now am (Mashpee) such heaps of stones 
or sticks collected on like occasions as above. The 



214 In Olde Massachusetts 

largest heap I ever observed is that large collection of 
small stones on Monument Mountain, between Stock- 
bridge and Barrington. We have a sacrifice rock, as 
it is termed, between Sandwich and Plymouth, to which 
stones and sticks are always cast by Indians who pass 
it. This custom or rite seems to be an acknowledgment 
of an invisible being, we may style him the unknown 
God, whom the people worship. This heap is his altar. 
The stone that is collected is the oblation of the traveler, 
which, if offered with a good mind, may be as acceptable 
as a consecrated animal." 

The monument stood on the southern slope of the 
mountain. It was circular at the base, with a diameter 
of from eight to ten feet, and as it approached the apex 
it assumed a conical form. It was thrown down about 
forty years ago by a band of covetous marauders in the 
hope of finding a treasure trove secreted beneath it, 
and now lies a shapeless mass of stone. It is a com- 
fort to know, however, that the freebooters gained 
nothing by their vandalism. But, although the pile 
is overthrown, the poetic and legendary associations 
that cluster about it will always render it an object of 
interest to intelligent tourists. 




The Indian Bikial Place, Stockhhidge 



CHAPTER XXIX 

LENOX IN 1883 

LENOX lies in the heart of the Berkshire Hills, two 
miles and a half from railroad and river, and very 
far away from any literary or commercial center; yet 
within a radius of two miles of the village green are 
between fifty and sLxty elegant country seats, each sur- 
rounded by a large, well-kept estate. Fair equestrians 
and ghttering equipages are familiar objects on the 
mountain roads. At the intersection of the two 
principal streets stands the hostelry of my friend 
Curtis, substantially built years ago of brick, whose 
great fires roar up its chimneys through autumn days 
with hospitable sound. It has entertained in its day 
Kossuth, Sumner, Channing, McClellan, Fanny Kemble, 
Charlotte Cushman, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Bret Harte, 
and, indeed, nearly all the notables of two generations. 
The town has been called a second Saratoga, the springs 
and the great hotels excepted — a most inapt compari- 
son, since Lenox is almost wholly devoted to the cot- 
tager, and its society is exclusive to a degree. It is 
rather a continuation of Newport. The season usually 
opens about the 15th of August, and closes by the middle 



216 In Olde Massachusetts 

of October, it being the fashion to flit with the leaves. 
Many of the visitors own cottages at Newport, which, 
as summer wanes, they close to finish the season at 
Lenox. 

We one day inquired of Mr. Curtis, an unquestioned 
authority on all matters pertaining to Lenox, as to the 
special attractions which have drawn the wealthy and 
distinguished in such numbers to the village, but he 
evaded a reply by inviting us out to drive, wisely assum- 
ing that that would be the only method of imparting 
to a visitor the charm of natural beauty and literary 
association which has made Lenox the fascinating 
spot it is. We drove southeast along the crest of the 
long undulation dominated by encircling ranges on 
which the town is built. On a side street, almost hid- 
den by a copse of pines, he pointed out a pretty cottage. 
"In the 'L' of that cottage, built especially for her," 
he remarked, "behind that green blind, Catherine 
Sedgwick wrote most of her later tales." Then, in the 
hollow at the foot of the hill, he pointed out the localities 
of the former homes of two other famous women, Fanny 
Kemble and Charlotte Cushman. " These three ladies 
spent many years in Lenox when it was entirely un- 
known to fame," he continued ; " and their enthusiastic 
descriptions of it, with both tongue and pen, first made 
its beauties known. Miss Kemble, in particular, was 
fascinated by it. I was a lad of twenty when she first 
began spending her summers here, and was often em- 



Lenox in 1883 217 

ployed to drive her in her excursions about the country. 
What beauty, what genius, what a presence she had. 
I don't suppose there's a mountain peak or a lake in 
this region that I haven't piloted her to. Sometimes 
she went alone, but oftener Miss Sedgwick or Miss 
Cushman or the young ladies of Mrs. Sedgwick's school 
made up the party. She then appeared at her best. 
To hear her recite Shakespeare on Greylock, or Bryant 
on Monument Mountain, in the midst of her friends, 
was to gain a new idea of her powers." 

At this moment we turned into a drive that led 
through spacious grounds to the front of a well-kept 
country seat. "This," said Mr. Curtis, "is the Hag- 
gerty place, leased the past summer by Robert C. Win- 
throp, Jr. Col. Robert G. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth 
Massachusetts Colored Volunteers, married a daughter 
of the owner and brought his bride here for the honey- 
moon, leaving her here after a few weeks, to march to 
his death in the assault on Fort Wagner, where, as you 
will remember, he was buried by the enemy under the 
bodies of his men. Mrs. Shaw, after her husband's 
death, resided here many years, and here entertained 
one summer Christine Nilsson, of whom I shall have 
something to say when we reach Echo Lake. Perhaps 
you would like to see the house where most of the ' Star 
Papers' were written. Here it is, this plain little cot- 
tage under the hill. When Mr. Beecher owned it, 
however, it stood ow the hill instead of under it, on the 



218 In Olde Massachusetts 

site occupied by the fine villa yonder. Mr. Beecher 
spent several summers in Lenox, and, like Miss Kemble, 
was fairly fascinated by it; so much so that liis congre- 
gation began to fear they would lose him entirely, and 
finally prevailed on him to allow his place here to be 
sold, purchasing for him instead his present farm at 
Peekskill. The farm is now owned by General Rath- 
bone, of Albany." 

From this point we drove down to and partly around 
Laurel Lake, a lovely sheet of water, a favorite haunt 
of Miss Kemble, which called out many interesting 
reminiscences of her from my companion. Returning 
village ward by another road, we passed the cottages of 
Dr. William H. Draper, of New York, and of Professor 
Rachemann, who married a niece of Miss Sedgwick, 
and drove by a private road through spacious grounds 
to one of the old-time mansions of Lenox, formerly 
owned by Judge Walker, a gentleman as much honored 
in Lenox as the Sedgwicks were in Stockbridge. " His 
son. Judge William, had a beautiful daughter, Sarah, 
who became the first wife of Senator David Davis. It 
came about in this way : at the time Senator Yancey and 
Josh Billings were wild boys at Lenox Academy, Mr. 
Davis was studying law in the village with old Judge 
Bishop, and being captivated by the lady, wooed and 
won her before his studies were completed." A short 
distance above the Walker place, Mr. Lanier, of New 
York, has chosen the site of a pretty modern villa, one 







o 



a Q 



Lenox in 1883 219 

of the most commanding and beautiful spots in all 
Berkshire. The hill slopes down to the shores of the 
famous Stockbridge Bowl. Southward the view is 
partly closed by the jagged pinnacles of Monument 
Mountain, and far below that by the blue dome of 
Mount Everett, the loftiest peak of the Taghanics, 
while on the north the view ends with the double peaks 
of Greylock. Near by, on the bluff-Hke north bank of 
the Bowl, stands the little red cottage where Haw- 
thorne wrote his "Tanglewood Tales" and "House of 
Seven Gables." We drove down, making quite a de- 
tour to reach it, and saw on a closer inspection a small, 
one-story cottage, half farmhouse, with green blinds, 
and a long "L" on the west, adjoining a barn. The 
author's study was in the southeast room, and com- 
manded a beautiful view of the lake and the mountain 
vista described on the south. "Many a time," said 
Mr. Curtis, "I have come down the road yonder and 
stopped for a chat with Hawthorne. With me he was 
always cheerful and sociable, though some have called 
him misanthropic. He always had a sad look in his 
eyes, and often in conversation would fall into a reverie 
from which he would rouse Iiimself with an effort. His 
life here was a very lonely one; he rarely called on any 
of the neighbors and had few visitors excepting chil- 
dren, of whom he was very fond, and who were drawn 
to him instinctively. The financial difficulties which 
clouded so much of his life had not then been removed. 



220 In Olde Massachusetts 

I think he had, too, a feeling that his talents were not 
fully appreciated." 

Echo Lake was the next point of interest included in 
our drive. The roads of this region are excellent, and 
the black and bay bore us around the west shores of 
Stockbridge Bowl with a rush. From the south shore 
we had our best general view of this justly famed sheet 
of water. The reader may imagine it as the pit of a 
great amphitheater whose outer rim is eight or nine 
miles in diameter, and its walls at first the green foot- 
hills, covered with country seats, which constitute 
Lenox, above them rising the craggy and wooded spurs 
of the Taghanics, the whole forming a landscape that 
for striking contrasts and concentration of detail has 
few equals. A mile south of the Bowl we came to a 
new road opened only last June for the sole use of 
pleasure parties, which led us west for nearly half a 
mile, until at the base of West Stockbridge Mountain 
we came upon Echo Lake. To my mind it is the pretti- 
est of the twelve or fifteen lakes that lie within easy dis- 
tance of Lenox. Its shores are delightfully irregular, 
abounding in sheltered nooks and coves, and. are shaded 
in places by open groves of pine much sought by picnic 
parties. On the west it is overhung by the black, grim 
mass of the mountain ; its chief feature is a double echo 
which repeats and repeats all sounds given it with 
astonishing accuracy and volume. Midway of the east 
shore is an overhanging boulder canopied by a young 



Lenox in 1883 221 

oak, which at the time of our visit hung an oriflamme 
of color over the lake. It was on this rock that Chris- 
tine Nilsson sang, while visiting in Lenox, to a select 
company of friends who had accompanied her to the 
lake. As described to me the scene must have been 
one of the most dramatic ever witnessed. Standing on 
the rock, the great singer threw across the water to the 
mountain the choicest notes in her repertoire, and these 
were caught by its subtle spirits and thrown back in 
double measure and with perfect accuracy. By and 
by, as the singer's ardor grew, the notes were echoed 
and reechoed with equal spirit, until it seemed that 
scores of celestial choirs must be hidden somewhere 
among the recesses of the crags. 

Echo Lake was the limit of our drive. As we drove 
back into the village street, Mr. Curtis inquired if my 
question had been satisfactorily answered, and I ad- 
mitted that the answer was all-sufficient. 



CHAPTER XXX 



THE HOOSAC TUNNEL 



NORTH ADAMS is so hidden among hills, that 
coming down the Hoosac Valley from Pittsfield 
or up from Albany one glides into the city almost with- 
out premonition. At its doors the north and east 
branches of the Hoosac River unite to form the main 
stream. The east branch has a green, open, fairly 
wide valley, with the towering mass of Greylock on the 
west, and is followed by the North Adams branch of 
the Boston and Albany Railroad in approaching from 
Pittsfield. The north branch, however, has no valley, 
only a gorge, and breaks through the rugged mountain 
barrier, just by the town, in a series of pretty cascades. 
A few yards below, it forms a pocket in the hills in 
which, and up the valley, and on the sides of the 
hills, the town is picturesquely built. Wherever there 
are cascades there is water-power, and wherever the 
Yankee and falling water meet, there in due course rise 
the mill, and workshop, and thriving community. 
This fact explains why North Adams is, with her great 
factories of boots and shoes, cotton and woollen fabrics, 
and minor industries. 



The Hoosac Tunnel 223 

The city is of more interest, however, to the tourist 
as being the point where the great tunnel can be most 
advantageously viewed. Directly above the town, on 
the east, rises the main spur of the Hoosac range, a 
black mass of slate 2,000 feet high. Cut directly 
through its base five miles, and you emerge in the Valley 
of the Deerfield, and may proceed across the Connecti- 
cut and over plateaus of light grade to Boston 136 miles 
distant. On the west there opens another natural 
highway, down the valley of the Hoosac to the Hudson, 
and thence up the Mohawk westward. But planted 
squarely in this natural highway, between Boston and 
the prairie grain-fields, is the huge mountain described, 
a forbidding obstacle. There are really two moun- 
tains or detached peaks, one, the loftiest, on the Hoosac 
side, and the other a very respectable mountain ward- 
ing the Deerfield Valley; between the two is a wide 
plateau seamed by water-courses and dotted by moun- 
tain farms. As early as 1825 the State engineers had 
surveyed this route at the instance of Boston business 
men, the project being then a canal to the Hudson 
River to connect with the Erie. "The hand of Provi- 
dence has pointed out this route from the East to the 
West," remarked the pioneer, engineer, Loammi Bald- 
win, to which a practical associate is said to have re- 
plied by pointing to the mountain. Baldwin had, 
however, already decided that it must be tunneled. 
A year later the introduction of railroads caused the 



524 In Olde Massachusetts 

canal project to be dropped, and when, In 1842, the 
Boston and Albany Railroad, twenty miles to the south- 
ward, was opened, the route as a highway was aban- 
doned. But the Boston and Albany Road was 
constructed on heavy grades with short curves, and 
could not put Western grain on Boston wharves at a 
rate satisfactory to Boston shippers, and in 1848 the 
proposal for a direct route again began to be strongly 
agitated. The project assumed shape in 1850, when 
the Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company obtained 
a charter to construct a road from Greenfield on the 
Connecticut River up the Deerfield, and through the 
Hoosac Mountains to the Vermont line, some seven 
miles west of North Adams. On January 7, 1851, 
the Board of Directors agreed to break ground for the 
tunnel the next day, and this vote, it is said, was carried 
into effect, a small excavation to the eastward of North 
Adams being still pointed out as the scene of the initial 
step. The authentic record, however, places the event 
a year later, in 1852, and the location at the east end 
of the tunnel. Twenty-one years elapsed before the 
huge work was completed. 

It is not necessary to give in detail the operations 
of those years, the trials and mishaps, the failure of 
one contractor after another, and finally the assump- 
tion of the enterprise by the State, and its successful 
completion by the contractors, Messrs. Walter and 
Francis Shanley, in November, 1873. These were 



The Hoosac Tunnel 225 

given formally in the newspapers at the opening of 
the tunnel. An account of the appearance of the 
great work and of the tourist's personal observations 
made in 1885 may not be uninteresting. 

A mile east of North Adams station, in a deep rock- 
cut, one approaches the gloomy western portal. A 
few yards from the entrance is a tall signal station with 
men in it watching the little indicator, which tells when 
a train enters or leaves the tunnel. The block system 
is in use here. Nothing is allowed to enter while a 
passenger train is within on the same track, and freight 
trains may follow one another only under a caution 
signal. A strong granite arch forms the opening, 
bearing on its face the simple legend "Hoosac, 1874." 
Looking in we see in the darkness bright lights dan- 
cing and sparkling, and are told by the watchmen that 
they are the torches of a gang of workmen repairing 
the brick arch a quarter of a mile in ; so we enter, mak- 
ing the dancing points of fire our goal. It is dark, 
damp, gloomy, sulphurous — one compares it with 
the descent into Hades, only the flight of the spirits 
was vastly easier than is our progress, for the space 
between the ties is filled with "ballast," small pieces 
of broken stone, and the wayfarer finds them indeed 
"stones of stumbling." At the other end, five miles 
distant, a freight train has just entered, and the ear 
is strained to catch its approaching roar. A bat's 
wing brushes the face in a ghostly way; water drips 



226 In Olde Massachusetts 

and splashes from the roof; strange echoes and sul- 
phurous smells fill the space. As you go on you cal- 
culate in a dreamy fashion how many thousand tons 
of earth and rock may be above you by this time; 
meanwhile the lights draw steadily nearer and nearer, 
until at last they are beside you. What a strange, 
Plutonian scene. A score of men, black and grimy, 
are lighted by flaming kerosene torches, the black 
smoke from which give a truly Avemian turn to the 
atmosphere. Looking around by the dim light, we 
found that the workmen had "bunched" several con- 
struction and observation cars on the track, had taken 
down a fifty-foot section of the brick arch, propping 
the roof with iron supports, and were now from the 
cars relaying the arch. 

The section boss was intelligent and gentleman- 
like, notwithstanding his coating of mud and soot; 
thoroughly familiar, from fifteen years' service in it, 
with every nook and cranny of the tunnel. "The 
frost is the great agent in getting the tunnel out of sorts," 
he remarked. "Here at the west end for some 2,500 
feet the mass above us is loose earth and 'porridge- 
stone,' and to keep it from caving in while working 
we had to roof it with a brick arch, averaging seven 
courses in thickness. Water forces itself through the 
brick in quantity, and in winter freezes, forcing them 
out of place. Then the arch has to be taken down 
and replaced, as we are doing now. Water percolating 



The Hoosac Tunnel 227 

through, too, has a tendency to disintegrate the mass, 
and undoubtedly does that. The tunnel, as you will 
perceive, is a vast conduit, a score of artesian wells 
in one. Very often in digging it we opened veins that 
threatened to flood us. Its outflow through a central 
drain beneath us is 725 gallons of water per minute." 

" How many feet of earth may there be above us ? " 
we ask, peering up at the slender-looking props under 
the roof. "About 700; loose earth and stone too, the 
most treacherous material the miner has to deal with," 
is the assuring answer. " Getting through it was one 
of the main problems in digging the tunnel. Several 
times it caved in, burying the workmen, before we 
struck the solid rock which forms the core of the moun- 
tain." 

At this juncture a hollow roar and rumble, pro- 
longed by a thousand echoes, fills the cavern. A fiery 
eye comes in sight, bearing down upon us, and with a 
hammering and grinding of wheels and a flurry of 
smoke wreaths about our heads, the heavy "freight" 
rolls by on the other track. 

A rather more interesting trip was that up the moun- 
tain to the central shaft of the tunnel, some five miles 
from the city. It is ten miles over the mountain from 
North Adams to the little village of Hoosac, in the 
Greenfield Valley, and before the tunnel was com- 
pleted a stage made the trip daily. A good broad 
highway doubles and twists up the mountain, afford- 



228 In Olde Massachusetts 

ing wonderful views of the valley and lower hills as 
one ascends. On the summit, nearly two thousand 
feet up, one passes over a bare, bald rock — a feature 
of most of these peaks — and then the road descends 
gently into the secondary valley of which we have 
spoken. The lowest part of this valley is 800 feet 
above the tunnel. " Take your second right and foller 
it 'bout two miles," were the directions a bronzed young 
man on a load of wood gave us for reaching the central 
shaft. We took the "second right," and presently 
emerging from the forest came to a great pile of black 
broken rock heaped around a wall of masonry eight 
or nine feet high — the central shaft. Light clouds 
of smoke and steam were ascending from it, for it is 
the great ventilator of the tunnel. To toss a stone 
over the balustrade, one might suppose would be to 
throw it directly into the tunnel. Not so, however, 
for away down at the bottom the falling stone would 
strike walls of solid masonry twenty feet thick, and if it 
could penetrate that, there would still remain a brick 
arch four feet thick between it and the tunnel orifice. 
This central shaft is one of the finest examples of en- 
gineering skill in the country. It was sunk in 1863 
to expedite the work by giving the men two additional 
headings to work from, and also to afford ventilation. 
The problem before the engineer was not only to sink 
the shaft to the proper level, but also in alignment with 
the east and west headings in the valleys. The prob- 



The Hoosac Tunnel 229 

lem was given to Mr. Carl O. Wederkinch, an engineer 
of Danish birth, and his calculations were so nicely 
made that on the meeting of the different headings in 
December, 1872, it was found that the alignments 
were in error but seven sixteenths of an inch. The 
tunnel has been the scene of many a tragedy. One 
hundred and ninety-two men in all were killed in con- 
structing it. The most fatal accident of all occurred 
in October, 1867, at this central shaft. A tank of 
gasoline near the mouth of the shaft, in some unex- 
plained way, took fire while the men were at their 
work beneath. The flames at once leaped to the shaft, 
seizing on eveiything combustible, and, in a few mo- 
ments, the burning timbers, with tons of steel drills 
and shaft machinery, were precipitated to the bottom, 
killing thirteen unfortunates who were at work there. 



A 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE CAPE COD CANAL A QUARTER-CENTURY AGO 

S one rumbles over the wide salt marshes on the 



Cape Cod branch of the Old Colony Railway, 
a mile this side of the village of Sandwich, he sees on 
the north, eating into the marsh, a huge machine, of 
which two twin smoke-stacks and a network of up- 
right timbers are the salient features. A channel 
behind it leads straight out into Barnstable Bay, and 
one jumps to the right conclusion that the mammoth 
is the dredge of the Cape Cod Ship Canal, and that 
the channel behind is the famous ditch itself. Having 
taken great interest in the canal enterprise, being too 
a little curious as to the status of the present company, 
the writer stopped at Sandwich, where he had been told 
the headquarters of the company were situated, with the 
hope of learning something of the history, and condition, 
and prospects of success of the enterprise. 

The history of the project, it is curious to note, goes 
back to the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, for they early 
made use of Sandwich Harbor Inlet and Monument 
River and the " carry " between in their voyages along 
shore, thus saving the dangerous voyage around the 



The Cape Cod Canal 231 

cape; and when Isaac de Rasiers, of New Amsterdam, 
Governor Minuit's Secretary, went on his famous 
embassy to Governor Bradford at Plymouth, he made 
use of this same "cut-off" across Cape Cod. By 1676 
the colonists had begun to talk of cutting a canal 
across Sandwich Neck, as is proven by an entry in 
the diary of Samuel Sewall, under date of October 26, 
1676. 

Twenty-one years later, in 1697, the General Court 
of Massachusetts appointed a committee to inquire 
into the practicability of opening a canal across the 
neck, and at the outbreak of the Revolution the pro- 
ject came near being put in execution as a military 
measure, as appears by the following extract from a 
letter written by General Washington to the Hon. 
James Bowdoin, of Boston, dated at New York, June 
10, 1776: 

"I am hopeful that you have applied to General 
Wood, and have received all the assistance Mr. Machin 
could give, in determining upon the practicability of 
cutting a canal between Barnstable and Buzzard's 
Bay ere this, as the great demand we have for engineers 
in this department (Canada, etc.), has obliged me to 
order Mr. Machin hither to assist in that branch of 
business." 

In 1825 the General Government had the isthmus 
surveyed, with the view of cutting a canal, but, although 
the report of the engineers was favorable, no action 



232 In Olde Massachusetts 

was taken. In 1860 Massachusetts again took the 
matter in hand, but the breaking out of the war caused 
the project to be rehnquished. Since then so many 
surveys have been made, without resulting in action, 
that the project has almost fallen into disrepute, and 
in fact the only company before the present one that 
ever began operations failed after a few months, not 
without suspicion of fraudulent practices. 

The present Cape Cod Ship Canal Company was 
incorporated by special charter under act of the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts, passed June 26, 1883, and 
amended by acts passed in 1884 and 1887, allowing 
until June 26, 1891, for completing the work. The 
company is governed by a Board of Directors, of which 
the Hon. William A. Clark, of Lynn, is President, and 
Samuel Fessenden, of Sandwich, is Treasurer. The 
remaining directors are Edwin Reed, of Boston, William 
A. French, of Boston, Sidney Dillon, Charles C. Dodge, 
and Thomas Rutter, of New York. By the terms of 
its charter the company may locate, construct, main- 
tain, and operate a ship canal, beginning at some con- 
venient point in Buzzard's Bay and running through 
the town of Sandwich to some convenient point in Barn- 
stable Bay; and may also lay out its canal, not exceed- 
ing 1,000 feet in width, "on condition that it shall file 
the location thereof within four months from the pas- 
sage of this act with the County Commissioners of 
Barnstable County defining the course, distances, and 



The Cape Cod Canal 233 

boundaries thereof," and on condition also "that said 
canal shall be commenced within four months, and be 
completed within four years from the passage of this 
act, and if at least $25,000 be not expended in the 
actual construction thereof within four months from 
the passage of this act, this corporation shall there- 
upon cease to exist." Section 16 gives the company 
power to establish for its sole benefit a toll upon all 
vessels or water craft which may use its canal at such 
rates as the directors may determine. Section 19 pro- 
vides that the capital stock of the company shall not 
be less than $2,000,000, and may be increased to an 
amount not exceeding $5,000,000, and that the com- 
pany may not begin to construct said canal or take 
any land or property therefor until it shall have 
deposited $200,000 with the Treasurer of the common- 
wealth as security for the performance of its obliga- 
tions. By Section 20 it was authorized by a vote of the 
majority of its stockholders to issue coupon or registered 
bonds to provide means for funding its floating debt, 
or for the payment of money borrowed for any lawful 
purpose, and to pledge in security for the payment 
of such bonds a part or all of its real and personal 
property and franchise; such bonds might be issued 
to an amount not exceeding the total amount of the 
capital stock actually paid in at the time; and before 
such bonds could be issued the Board of Railroad Com- 
missioners must issue a certificate, a copy of which 



234 In Olde Massachusetts 

should be printed in each bond, that the total amount 
of bonds previously issued did not exceed the amount 
of capital stock actually subscribed and paid in. These 
are the chief provisions of the charter. 

The contract with Frederick A. Lockwood, of Boston, 
made in 1883 and subsequently amended, calls for a 
ship canal 200 feet in v^^idth from high-water mark at 
Agawam Point, on Buzzard's Bay, through the town 
of Sandwich to high-water mark on Barnstable Bay, 
near the mouth of Scusset Riyer. "Nature has 
provided a route for the canal," said Mr. Thompson, 
the company's engineer. "From Sandwich Harbor 
it follows the valley of the Scusset River some four 
miles to North Sandwich, where it encounters the 
'divide' between Barnstable and Buzzard's Bays. In 
getting through this into the valley of the Monument 
River, a tributary of Buzzard's Bay, occurs the heaviest 
cutting on the line — 59 rV feet to the bottom of the 
canal. When you remember that the hills which 
form the backbone of the cape rise all the way from 
60 to 180 feet, you will see that we have a natural valley 
or depression quite across the cape. There are several 
ponds, too, that will facilitate dredging. The char- 
acter of the soil presents no impediment. Borings 
have been made on every section of the route, and 
demonstrate that the soil is composed only of loam 
sand, gravel, and clay. No boulders even were met 
with, except at Monument, and they were small. It 



The Cape Cod Canal 235 

is estimated that the canal can be constructed through 
this material for $7,500,000, and that with the dredges 
we shall soon have in operation, it can be completed 
in eighteen months. We use the Lockwood dredge, 
which, from its great power, and its capacity to raise 
and automatically deliver at any desired distance along 
the banks material from the bed of the canal, goes far 
towards solving the problem of time and money needed 
to complete the great work. The one now at work 
cost $125,000, and is capable of cutting and depositing 
on the bank 11,000 cubic yards per day of twenty -four 
hours. It is now actually cutting 7,000 yards daily. 
Besides this, two more are in course of construction, 
each with a capacity three times greater than the 
present one. About one mile of the trunk of the canal, 
you will remember, has been nearly completed, leav- 
ing six miles and a half to be dredged. The contrac- 
tors are Frederic A. Lockwood, of Boston, and Smith & 
Ripley, of New York, and the price paid is $1,000,000 
per mile, payment to be made in the securities which 
the company is legally authorized to issue. The con- 
tractor has issued construction debentures for $3,000,000 
which have been endorsed by the officers of the com- 
pany, and are secured by the deposit with the Fai-mers' 
Loan and Trust Company, of New York, as trustee, 
of the charter, franchises, and contracts, which cover 
all the securities, rights, and property of the Canal 
Company. These debentures have but two years to 



236 In Olde Massachusetts 

run, so that the contractor must complete at least five 
miles of the canal by July 15, 1889, to meet these obli- 
gations. Of these securities $1,900,000 have been 
sold, though no effort has been made to place them on 
the market — one million by a New York syndicate, 
the rest by Boston parties." 

"Yours will be the largest canal ever constructed, 
will it not ? " 

" In width and depth probably the largest. The 
North Holland Canal is 125 feet wide at the top, 20^ 
feet deep, and 31 feet wide at the bottom; the New 
Amsterdam 191 feet wide at the top, 87 feet at the 
bottom, and 23 feet deep; the Suez 190 feet wide at the 
top, 26 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom. The 
Cape Cod will be 200 feet wide at the top, 75 feet wide 
at the bottom, and 23 feet deep." 

" Will there be locks ? " 

" No ! That was the great bugbear of the early sur- 
veyors. The entire southeastern portion of Massa- 
chusetts, as you will see by the map, juts out into the 
ocean, caushig a break in the two adjoining arms of 
the tidal wave at the south shore of Nantucket, and 
what is called the west chop in Vineyard Sound. In 
consequence high water comes three hours and twenty 
minutes earlier in Buzzard's Bay than in Barnstable, 
and low water four hours and eleven minutes sooner. 
So that, periodically, the water in Barnstable Bay is 
5.79 feet higher than that in Buzzard's Bay, and at 



The Cape Cod Canal 237 

other times 4.66 feet lower. Early surveyors argued 
that locks would be necessary to stop the flow of the 
current which this difference of level would create; 
but the calculations of Mr. Clemens Herschel and 
other eminent engineers demonstrate that the maximum 
flow of the current will not exceed four miles per hour, 
only sufiicient to keep the canal free of ice in winter, 
and causing no hindrance to navigation. General 
Foster in May, 1870, said : ' There seems to be no ques- 
tion of the practicability of an open passage for a canal 
at Cape Cod.' " 

" It is urged in opposition to the canal, I think, that 
it will be frozen up for a third of the year." 

" We do not believe that it will be closed to naviga- 
tion by ice for a day. Prof. Henry Mitchell deter- 
mines the freezing-point of Barnstable Bay water to 
be 29 degrees, while that of Buzzard's Bay is 28.5, 
and the resultant of the current through the canal being 
from Barnstable Bay, the tendency will be to carry a 
current of warm and salt water into Buzzard's Bay, 
thus preventing the formation of ice in the bay as well 
as in the canal. The company's experience last winter 
in excavating for the canal confirmed its belief that 
ice would interfere very little with the canal naviga- 
tion." 

"And now I should like to ask on what you base 
your hope of a revenue in return for this great outlay." 

"It is estimated that 40,000 vessels round Cape 



238 In Olde Massachusetts 

Cod annually. The Government lookout at Province- 
town Light counted in the day time over 21,000 vessels 
passing his light in the year ending June 30, 1884. As 
many more probably go in the night, but we will say 
two-thirds — that will make 35,000 in all. The ton- 
nage of between 3,000 and 4,000 of these taken at the 
Boston Custom-house averaged 580 tons each. If 
60 per cent, of the above number go through the canal, 
we should have a yearly commerce of over 12,000,000 
tons. But there is other traffic that this canal must 
inevitably attract. The Fall River, Providence, Ston- 
ington, and Norwich lines of Sound steamers must 
extend their lines to Boston, using this short passage, 
or others will. You see by this map of the coast line 
from New York to Boston, that the distance from Point 
Judith to Boston, by way of Buzzard's Bay and the 
canal, is very little more than by the present railroad 
route from Fall River and Providence; while over the 
intricate and dangerous route through Vineyard and 
Nantucket Sounds and around Cape Cod, there is a 
positive saving in distance of 76 miles, and as against 
the ocean route, of 140 miles. Another considera- 
tion : the opening of this canal would create practically 
an inland water route, so that fleets of barges laden 
with grain, coal, etc., could be made up at New York 
and towed by tugs to Boston, thus extending prac- 
tically the Erie and other canals centering at New York 
to Boston. The actual cost of going around the cape 



The Cape Cod Canal 239 

is estimated at from 25 to 40 cents per ton (of the $1.05 
average freight rate by water), between New York 
and Boston. If 07ie half this should be charged 
for using the canal, we should have a toll of not 
less than 10 cents per ton, or, say, $1,200,000 per 
year. Traffic from the coal trade alone, we estimate, 
would support the canal, and yield a fair return on the 
investment." 

Later I visited the dredge, which I found at work 
in the salt marsh a mile out of town. I may describe 
it briefly as a huge mass of timbers and machinery 
sixty feet high, set upon a float, which is moved for- 
ward or sideways as the huge buckets eat away the 
bank. The excavating machinery comprises a series 
of buckets, each of the capacity of a cubic yard, fixed 
on an endless chain like the buckets in a grain elevator, 
the upper end of the frame on which the chain runs 
being fixed to the top of the structure, while the lower 
reaches the bottom of the canal. The buckets cut as 
they descend, and are drawn up full to the summit of 
the dredge, where they empty automatically into a 
large pocket. A huge fifteen-inch pipe of iron and 
steel descends from this pocket, fifty feet to the sur- 
face of the canal, and is carried on floats to a point 
some distance beyond the bank. Three large pipes 
from powerful force-pumps below empty into this 
pocket, and the huge jets of water from them dissolve 
the mud and silt as it falls from the buckets, and carry 



240 In Olde Massachusetts 

it down through the fifteen-inch pipe, and to the marshes 
beyond. 

Having heard what could be said in favor of the 
canal by those interested, we journeyed further out 
on the Cape, and questioned on the subject a gentle- 
man of the highest intelligence and probity, and with- 
out pecuniary or other interest in the enterprise. 

"Do you know," he said, "that if Jim Fisk had 
lived, foreign steamers would now be sailing through 
the Cape Cod canal.? I haven't the least doubt of it. 
Fisk became interested in the enterprise some years 
before his death, and secured a charter from Massa- 
chusetts, but died before its conditions could be com- 
plied with, and it lapsed. Fisk said he was willing 
to put $1,000,000 in the scheme, and he induced Gould 
and other capitalists among his friends to pledge the 
remainder. His idea was a through line of steamers 
to Boston by way of the canal, and he had actually 
contracted for two at the time of his death, and they 
are now running as part of the fleet of one of the Sound 
lines. Other parties took up the project from time 
to time, but could never secure the necessary funds. 
The present company, judging from the character of 
its officers and the work done, is a bona-fide and not 
a speculative concern. Indeed, it is so hedged in by 
restrictions that it would be diflScult for it to be any- 
thing else but honest. I think it will complete the 
canal. It is understood here that it is backed by Eng- 



The Cape Cod Canal 241 

Hsh as well as by New York capitalists, and it has spent 
too much money under the charter and had too hard a 
fight to get it last winter to yield it up, unless it finds that 
the canal cannot be built and operated. As to locks. 
General Totten and Professor Baird, who came here 
to investigate it, told me that the plan was feasible, 
but that locks would be required. I think there will 
be some trouble with ice in severe winters, and it is 
probable that larger breakwaters than the company 
contemplates would have to be built at the entrance 
of the canal. I have heard that a breakwater one 
mile long, to cost $4,000,000, would be needed." 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adams, Abigail 28 

Charles Francis 3. 28 

John 27, 28 

John Quincy 27, 28, 78 

Mansion 27 

Samuel 11, 25 

Agawam Point 234 

Alcott, A. Bronson 17, 18 

Louisa M. 17 

Alden, John 38, 39 

Priscilia 32, 38 

Allayne 26 

Amherst 188 

American Flag 3 

Ames, Oliver 45 

Amos, Daniel 166 

Anti-slavery in Nantucket 107 

Apes, William 166, 168, 171 

Appleton Mansion 200, 203 

Arlington 8 

Astor, John Jacob 102 

Attaguin, Solomon 172 



B 

Baird, Professor, 
Baker's Island 
Banks, Governor 



241 

72 
185 



Barker, Jacob 128, 140 

Barnard, Anna 71 

Hezekiah 150, 152 

Rev. John 71 
Barnstable 75 to 84, 231 

Bay 230, 232, 234, 236, 237 

Barrington 214 

Bass 110 

Baxter, Capt. David 132, 133 

Sir Francis 133 

Miss 155, 156 

Beehive 31 

Beecher, H. W. 217, 218 

Bertram, John 63 

Billings 42 

Josh 218 

Bishop, Judge 218 

Bissel, Trail 12 

Black Horse Tavern 8 

Bliss, Rev. Daniel 19 

Bogardus, Capt. John 146 

Bond, John 74 

Bourne, Rev. Joseph 163 

Rev. Richard 162 

Bowditch, Nathaniel 68 

Bowdoin, James 26, 231 

Bradford, George 30, 32 
Bradford, Gov. 41, 43, 231 

Brainerd, David 191 

Braintree 22 

Branford 13 



U6 



Index 



PAGES 

Brattle House 7 

Brewster, Elder William 39 

Briggs, J. C. 140 

Brook Farm 29 to 35 

Phalanx 29, 30, 33 

Some Recollections of 33 
Brookline 13 

Brown, John 9 

Bryant, Solomon 163 

William CuUen 40, 212, 217 
Bunker Hill 3, 4, 6 

Bunker, Reuben R. 140 

Thomas 140 

Burckhardt 30, 31 

Burial Hill 36, 42 

Burnell, Barker 152, 156 

Burr, Thaddeus 12, 26 

Butter, Peter 22, 26 

Buttrick, Major John 18 

Buzzards Bay 231, 232, 234, 
236, 237, 238 



Cambridge 1 to 4, 25 

Cape Cod Canal 230 to 241 
Captain's Room 142 

Carnes, Capt. Jonathan 61, 62 
Channing, W. E. 14, 34, 215 
Charles River 8 

Chase, Joseph 140 

Cheever, Rev. Samuel 71 

County Court House, Ply- 
mouth 40 
Claghorn, George 103 
Clapp 34 
Clark, Mrs. Hannah 43 
Rev. Sylvester 11 
Thomas 43 
William A. 232 
Clarke, James Freeman 30 
Coffins, The 91, 117 
Coffin, Alexander 140 
Benjamin 157 



PAGES 

Coffin, Sir Isaac 140 

Joshua 140 

Micajah 156, 157, 158, 159 

Nathan 87, 140 

Shubael 140 

Thaddeus 140 

Zebulon 140 

Coleman, Elihu 107 

Cole's Hill 42 

Colesworthy, Jonathan 140 

Commerce, beginning of 

foreign 57 

Committee of Safety 7 

Common in Cambridge 3 

Concord 4, 14 to 20 

Concord Bridge, Fight on 15 
Constitution, Frigate 73 

Continental Congress 26 

Continentals 2, 3 

Coppin 42 

Cottage City 183, 184 

Cottage of Margaret Fuller 32 
Cotton, John 22, 43 

Craigie, Dr. 5 

Cranch, C. P. 34 

Cressy, Captain 105 

Crowe, William 42 

Crowninshield, George 63 

Curtis 215, 216, 219, 221 

George William 34 

Cushing, Caleb 2 

Cushman, Charlotte 215, 216, 
217 
Thomas 43 

Custom House, Salem 65 



D 

Dana, Charles A. 31, 33, 34, 35 

Danforth, William S. 40 

Davis, Colonel 150, 152 

Senator David 218 

Judge 108, 110 



Index 



247 



Decatur, Commodore 115 

Deerfield 188, 195 to 199, 224 

Delano, Warren 104 

De Rasiere, Isaac 43, 231 

Derby, Elias H. 57, 59, 62, 63 

Richard 63 

Samuel 61 

de Wamlle, Brissot 121, 122 

De Wolfe, James 102 

Dillon, Sidney 232 

Dixon, Edward 114 

Dodge, Charles C. 232 

Downes, Commodore 103, 136, 

137, 138 

Draper, Dr. William H. 218 

Dudley, Miss Abigail 19 

Duganne 34 

Dunham, H. G. O. 98 

Dwight 35 

Doctor 76 

Mary Edwards 193 

Timothy 193 



E 



Easthampton 188 

Eastville Highlands 180 

Echo Lake 217, 220, 221 

Edgarto\\Ti 180, 181 

Edwards Church 189 

Edwards, Jerusha 191 

Jonathan 163, 189, 190, 
191, 193 

Mary 193 

Rev. Timothy 190 

Elizabeth Isles 180, 181, 182 
Elliot, Ebenezer 40 

Ellis, Captain 84 

Elmwood 6 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo 3, 14, 
15. 17, 20, 35 

Mrs. William 15 

Epitaph to John Jack 19 



PAGES 

Essex House 63 

Everett 49 

Edward 2, 4 

Everson, Rev. William 18 

Ewer, Rev. F. C. 91 

Eyry, The 31 



Fairfield 12, 13, 25 

Farragut 103 

Fayerweather Mansion 7 

Fessenden, Samuel 232 

"Ffoulger," Abiah 90 

Peter 90 

Fields, James T. 40 

Fish, Rev. Mr. 166 

Fisk, Jim 240 

Fitch, Rev. Ebenezer 206 

Capt. Obed 134 

Fletcher, Grace 48, 50, 51 

Flynt, Dorothy 25, 26 

Henry 23, 24, 25 

Rev. Henry 23 

Flynt's Chamber 23 

Folger 110 

Abiah 90 

Charles J. 91 

Elisha 108 

Mrs. 132 

Peter 90 

Robert 140 

Timothy 140 

Walter 140 

William C. 157 

Folgers 90, 117 

Forefathers' Monument 44 

Forefathers' Rock 36, 41 

Fort Massachusetts 205, 206 

Fort Sewall 70, 72 

Fort Wagner 217 

Foster, General 237 

Fountain Inn 72 



248 



Index 



PAGES 

Franklin, Benjamin 90, 101, 141 
Sir Charles 72, 73 

Josiah 90 

French, D. C. 16 

Wm. A. 232 

Friends 107, 118, 125, 154, 156 

Fuller, Margaret 14, 32 



Gage, General 27 

Gardner, Capt. Edmund 135 

Gideon 140 

Grafton 136 

John 140 

Latham 140 

Micajah 134, 140 

Resolved 140 

Gardners 117 

Gerry, Elbridge 6 

Gray, Edward 42 

Greenfield 224 

Green Harbor 46 to 54 

Glover, Col. John 4 

Godwin, Parke 34 

Gold, Thomas 201 

Gosnold, Bartholomew, 175, 181 

Gould, Jay 240 

Grant, General 101 

"Grave of British Soldiers" 10 

Gray, William 63 

Greeley, Horace 34 

Greenough, Horatio 2 

Greylock, 219, 222 

Griffith, Camillus 108, 111 

Grinnell, John 140 

Guilford 13 

Gwin, James 140 

H 



Hadley 


188 


Hadley, Samuel 


9 


Haggerty Place 


217 



Hale, Edward Everett 2 

Half-way Rock 72 

Hancock, John 11, 12, 25, 26, 27 

Mrs. Thomas 11, 25 

Hanford, Phoebe A. 91 

Harrington, Caleb 9 

Jonathan, Jr. 9, 10 

Harris, Colonel 109 

Ex-Governor 185 

Harte, Bret 215 

Harvard College 3, 23, 71 

Hall 2 

Hawley, Rev. Gideon 163, 213 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 14, 15, 

17, 20, 30, 33, 65, 66, 67, 

215, 219 

Major William 67 

Hayes, Commodore 177 

Hedge, Abby 150 

Hemans, Mrs. 40 

Herschel, Clemens 237 

Herting, Captain 146 

Higginson, T. W. 34 

Hill, Aaron 150, 158 

Burying Ground 18 

Mr. 152 

Hiller, Thomas 140 

HilHard, H. W. 2 

Hoar 2 

Holland, J. G. 188 

Hollingsworth 32 

Hollis Hail 3 

Holmes, Abiel 7 

House 6, 7 

Oliver Wendell 2, 200, 

202, 203 

Silas 140 

Home of Charlotte Cushman 216 

of Emerson 17 

of Hawthorne 17 

of Fanny Kemble 216 

of Longfellow 4, 5, 6, 

of James Russell Lowell 6 

of Thoreau 18 



Index 



249 



PAGES 



PAGES 



Hoosac River 


222 


L 






Tunnel 222 to 229 








Village 


227 


Lafayette 




102 


Hope, Captain 
Hopkins, Mark 
Ho yoke 


115 


Lanier 




218 


207, 208 


Lathrop, Francis H. 




20 


188 


George P. 




17 


Rev. Edward 


71 


Gladys H. 




20 


Elizabeth 


71 


Laurel Lake 




218 


Hubbard, Rev. Salem 


71 


Lebanon 




4 


Hudson, Hendrick 


175 


liCe Mansion 




7 


Hurst, Rev. William 


171, 172 


Lembert, Thomas 




80 


Hussey, Benjamin 


139 


Le Roy, Caroline 




48 


George G. 


134 


Lenox 210 to 221 


Hutchinson. Gov. Thos 


;. 26, 27 


Lenox Academy 
Lester, John 




218 
206 






Lexington, 


4, 


8,9 


I 




Leyden Street 




41 






Lincoln, Governor 150, 


152, 


153, 


Ingersoll, Capt. Jonathan 58 


160, 


, 167, 


, 168 


Inscriptions 3, 9, 15, 16, 38, 50, 


President 




179 


51, 70, 71, 


, 193, 199 


Lockwood, F. A. 


234, 


235 


Ives, Silas 


140 


Longfellow, Ernest 




6 






Henry W. 3, 


4,5, 


,200 






Long Pond 




90 


J 




Lowell, Charles 




6 


Jack, John 
Jackson, General 


19 

103 


James Russell 
Lowell's Island 
Lyme 




34 
72 
13 


Jefferson, President 


38,49 




Jones, Ransom 


140 








Rev. Mr. 


12 


M 






K 




Machin, Mr. 




231 




Macy 




152 


Katama 


180 


Francis G. 


109, 


,110 


Kemble, Fanny 215, 


216, 217, 


Gen. George N. 




91 




218 


J. B. 




99 


Kent, Duke of 


5 


Lieutenant 




94 


Killingworth 


13 


Lydia Ann 




94 


King Philip 


39 


Mrs. 




94 


Kirkland Street 


6 


Sylvenus 




110 


Knight, Charles 


34 


Thomas 




91 


Konkapot, Captain 


212 


Thomas Mackerel 




109 


Kossuth 


215 


Macys 


90, 


, 117 



250 



Index 



PAGES 

Maddequecham 1 1 2 to 116 

Maddequet 90, 91 

Manning, Richard 67 

Manomet 43 

Marblehead 69 to 74 

Martha's Vineyard 179 to 186 
Marshfield 51, 52 

Marsillac, John 121, 122 

Mashpees 161 to 172 

Massachusetts Hall 2 

Mason, Perez 186 

Mather, Rev. Eleazer 190 

Rowland 45 

Mayflower 37, 39, 43, 45 

May hew, Thomas 181 

McClellan 215 

McKay, Donald 105 

Memorial Hall, Deerfield 196 
Milford Haven 176 

Minuit, Governor 231 

Mirabeau 121, 122 

Mitchell, Prof. Henry 237 

Mitchells 91, 117 

Mix, Rev. Stephen 190 

Mohawks 212 

Monroe, Robert 9 

Monument Mountain 209 to 214, 
217 
IMonument River 230, 234 

Monuments 9, 15, 36 

Morris, Captain 91, 92, 94, 95, 96 
Mooers, Capt. William 99, 135 
Mott, Lucretia 91 

Robert 140 

Mount Holyoke 187 

Mount Tom 187, 188 

Muhhekunnucks 213 

Muzzy, Isaac 9 

N 

Nantiicket 85 to 160, 236 

Nantucket Whale Fishers 88 
New Brunswick 13 



PAGES 

New Haven 13 

New London 13 

New York 13 

Nilsson, Christine 217, 221 

North Adams 222, 224, 225, 
227 
Northampton 187 to 194 

Norwich 13 



O 

Oak Bluflfs 180, 185 

Orchard House 17 

Orne, William 63 

Old Manse, The 14, 15, 16 

Olivers, Lieut-Gov. Thomas 6 

Ordronaux 115 

Otis 34 

Harrison Grey 78 



Paddock 


134 


Ichabod 


128 


Parker, Captain 


9 


John 


9 


Jonas 


11 


Theodore 


29, 34, 35 


Peabody Brothers 


2 


Joseph 


63 


Peele, Jonathan 


62 


Periwigs 


79 


Perkins, Thomas H. 


102 


Perry, Commodore 


61 


Phalanstery 


31 


Philadelphia 


13 


Philbrook, Captain 


144 


Phillips, Adelaide 


47 


Wendell 


3 


Pickering, Timothy 


68 


Pierce, Thomas C. 


185 


Pierrepont, Sarah 


193 



Index 



251 



PAGES 

"Pilgrim Fathers" 40, 230 

Pilgrim Hall 36, 52 

House 31 

Society 40, 42, 44 

Pilgrims 41, 42, 45 

Pinkham. Obcd 114 

Reuben R. 136, 137, 138 
Pitcairn 18 

Pittsfield 200 to 203, 222 

Plymouth 36 to 45, 214 

Colony 41,43,49 

Point Judith 238 

Pollard, George 140 

Popmonet, Solomon 162 

Porter, Asahel 9 

Commodore David 103 

Pratt, Mrs. 17 

Prescott, William H. 3, 68 

Prince Boston 107, 108 

Princeton 13 

Pring, Martin 181 

Provincetown 173 to 178 

Provisional Congress 2 

Putnam, General 4 



Q 



21 to 28 
11, 25, 27 



Quincy 

Dorothy 

Edmund 22 
Judge Edmund 12, 23, 25 

Josiah 2, 22, 150 

Mansion 21, 27 

Quakers 121, 122, 124 

in France 121 

Quaker Petition 121 



Rathbone, General 
Reed, Edwin 
Revere, Paul 
Rhode Island 
Riley 
Ricketts, David 



R 

Racheman, Professor 
Raleigh, Walter 
Ramsdell, Frederick W. 
Gideon 



218 

38 

144 

140 



PAGES 

218 

232 

8 

181 

134 

109 

Ripley," George 30, 33, 34, 35 

Robert, Elder 43 

Rodmans 136, 159 

Rogers 68 

Rotches 136, 159 

Benjamin 120, 121 

Francis H^ 

Joseph 117, 118, 140 

Thomas HI 

William 86, 87, 99, 103, 

108, 117, 118, 119, 120, 

121, 122, 125, 132, 133, 

135, 139 

Rutter, Thomas 232 



Sacrifice Rock 214 

Sailors of Nantucket 97 

Salem 55 to 68 

Sampson 1**^ 

Sandwich 214, 230, 232, 234 

Sanford, F. C. 85 

Saybrook l-* 

Shirley Square 41 

School of Philosophy 17 

Scusset River 234 

Sedgwick, Catherine 216, 217 

Sergeant, Rev. John 212 
Sewall, Judge 22, 24, 70, 72, 231 

Shaw, Chief Justice 78 

Hope '78 

Col. Robert G. 217 

Mrs. R. G. 217 

Sheldon, John 197, 198 

Ships of Nantucket 97 

Simonds, Joshua 10 



252 



Index 



PAGES 



Smith College 




193 


Thatcher, Dr. James 


78 


Smith, Capt. John 




176 


Thompson, Mr. 


234 


Smith & Ripley 




235 


Thoreau, Henry D. 


3, 14, 18, 


Sparks, Jared 




5 




20. 215 


Spring, Rev. Mr. 




192 


Totten, General 


241 


Springfield 




187 


Training Hill 


75, 76 


Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 


19 


Trumbull, John 


38 


South Hadlcy 




188 


Jonathan 


4,38 


Squires, Da\ad 




142 






Standish, Miles 


38,39 


, 41, 43 






Starbuck, Content 


92,93 


, 94, 95 


V 




Edward 




94,95 






Mrs. Edward 




94 


Vassal, Col. John 


4 


Esther 


92, 


, 93, 94 


Vineyard Haven 


180 


Nathaniel 


92, 


94, 95 


Highlands 


185 


Nathaniel, Jr. 




92 


Sound 


236 


Starbucks 


91, 


92, 117 






Stockbridge 


209, 210, 214 






Bowl 


219, 220 


w 




Indians 


163, 212, 213 






Stoddard, Esther 




190 


Waahtukook 


212 


Mary 




190 


Wadsworth House 


2 


Solomon 




189 


Walden's Pond 


18 


Story 




34,68 


Walker, Judge 


218 


Dr. Elisha 




74 


Sarah 


218 


Rev. Isaac 




71,74 


Judge William 


218 


Judge 




48 


Ward, Joshua 


68 


Chief Justice 




74 


Sam 


27 


Stoughton Hall, 




2,3 


Warwick, Earl of 


41 


Stuart 




48 


Washington, General 


2, 3, 4, 


Sturgis, William 




78 




68, 231 


Sumner, Charles 




2,215 


Elm 


3 


Surrage, Agnes 




73 


Headquarters 


4,7 


Swain, John, Jr. 




135 


Madam 


4,192 


Peleg 




142 


Waterhouse Mansion 


7 


Seth 




140 


Waterman, Robert 


140 


William W. 




111 


Robert, Jr. 
Thaddeus 
Watertown 


104, 140 

140 

12,13 


T 






Wayside 
Webster, Caroline 


17 
50 


Talleyrand 




5 


Daniel 46, 


47, 48, 49, 


Taylor 




109 




50, 51, 52 


Ebenezer 




79 


Daniel, Grave of 


37 



Index 



253 



PAGES 

Webster, Maj. Edward 50 

Edwin 49 

Estate 46 

Fletcher 50, 51, 54 

Mrs. Fletcher 47 

Historical Society 49 

Julia 48, 49, 50, 54 

Websteriana 27 

Webster Place 46 

Wederkinch, Carl O. 229 

Weekes, Rev. George 79 

Wendell, Jacob 202 

Wendell, Judge Oliver 7 

Went^wth, Ruth 91, 92, 93, 94, 

95,96 

Wesleyan Grove 185 

West, Charles 128 

Paul 130 

Capt. Silas 130 

Capt. Stephen 128, 129 

West Roxbury 29 

White, Peregrine 39 

Whittemore, Samuel 9 

Whittier, John Greenleaf 34 



Whitwell, Rev. William 71 

Williams College 204, 207 

WiUiams, Rev. Daniel 162 

Ephraim 205, 206 

Mrs. Eunice 199 

Rev. John 198 

Mrs. John 198 

Williamstown 204 to 208 

Winslow, Edward, Portrait 37 

Maj.-Gen. John 37, 52 

Gov. Josiah 37, 46. 52 

Penelope 37, 52 

Winthrop, Gov. John 67 

Robert C, Jr. 217 

Wood, General 231 

Woods Holl 180 

Worth, Capt. Benjamin 130, 132 

Wright, Porter 52 



Yancey, Senator 



218 



The Building of a Book 

With an introduction by 
THEODORE L. DeVINNE 

Edited by FREDERICK H. HITCHCOCK 



A BOOK EVERY WRITER SHOULD READ 



Contains articles by experts in each of the following subjects , 



The Author 

The Literary Agent 

The Literary Adviser 

The Manufacturing De- 
partment 

Hand Composition and 
Elect rotyping 

Composition by the 
Linotype Machine 

Composition by the 
Monotype Machine 

Proof Reading 

The Making of Type 

Paper Making 

Presswork 

Printing Presses 

Printing Ink 

Printer's Rollers 

The Illustrator 

The Wax Process 

Half-tone, Line and 
Color Plates 



Making Intagho Plates 

Printing Intaglio Plates 

The Gelatine Process 

Lithography 

Cover Designing 

The Cover Stamps 

Book Cloths 

Book Leathers 

The Binding 

Special Bindings 

Copyrighting 

Publicity 

Reviewing and Criticising 

The Traveling Salesman 

Selling at Wholesale 

Selling at Retail 

Selling by Subscription 

Selling at Auction 

Selecting for a Public 

Library 
Rare and Second-Hand 

Books 



12wio, cbth, illustrated, $2.00 net — postage 15 cents 

The Gr.\fton Press, PtJBLisHERS 
70 Fifth Avenue, New York Crrr 



Colonial Families 

OF THE 

United States of America 

In which is given the History, Genealogy and Armorial 

Bearings of Colonial Families who settled in the 

American Colonies between the Periods 

from the Time of the Settlement of 

Jamestown, ISth May, 1607 

to the Battle of Lexington, 19th April, 1775 

EDITED BY 

GEORGE NORBURY MACKENZIE, LL.B. 

Member oj the American Historical Association, National Genealogical 

Society, Old North-West Genealogical and Historical Society, 

Member oj the Committee on Heraldry and Genealogy 

oj Maryland Historical Society 



THE plan of the work is to give a sketch of the life of the 
immigrant ancestor, the family from which he sprmig, and 
the direct line of descent of the present living representative 
of the family, together with armorial bearings, and such other 
matters as may be of interest not only to the present but 
future generations. There will be about one hundred and 
fifty pedigrees in each volume and over 20,000 names in the 
index. 

Large octavo, 650 pages, gilt top, printed on all rag paper. 
Edition Limited, $15.00 net (carriage extra) 

The Grafton Press 
70 Fifth Avenue, New York 



Grafton Genealogies and Histories 

King Philip's War. l!2mo, cloth, illustrated. Price $2.00 
net. 

Life of Col. Richard Lathers. Price $5.00 net. 

Middletown Upper Houses. 8vo, cloth. Price before 
publication, $5.00 net. 

List of Emigrant Ministers to America. 8vo, cloth. 
Price $3.00 net. 

History of the Ohio Society of New York. Octavo 
cloth. Price $5.00 net. 

Benjamin FrankHn Newcomer, A Memorial. 

The Norris Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, 64 pages, frontis- 
piece. Price $3.00 net. 

The Plantagenet Roll. Folio, cloth, about 550 va^es. 
Price $45.00 net. " 

The History of Redding, Connecticut. New edition. 
8vo, cloth, illustrated. Price $5.00 net. 

The Right to Bear Arms. 12nio, cloth. Price $3.00 
net. 

The Prindle Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, illustrated. Price 
$5.00 net. 

The Rix Family in America. Octavo, cloth, illustrated, 
250 pages. Price $5.00 net. 

Register of Christ Church, Middlesex, Virginia. Folio, 
341 pages, cloth. Price $5.00 net. 

Register of the Colonial Dames of New York. 

Register of Saint Peter's Parish, New Kent County, 
Virginia. 8vo, 187 pages, cloth. Price $5.00 net 

The Sension — St. John Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, 
illustrated. Price $9.00 net. 

Arms and Pedigree of Seymour of Payson, Illinois. 
Quarto, boards. Price $10.00 net. Full levant, $25.00 
net. 

The Smith Family. 8vo, cloth. Price $3.20 net. 

Shakespeare's Family. 8vo, cloth. Price $4.00 net. 

The Tyler Genealogy. Compiled from the Manuscripts 
of the late W. L Tyler Brigham, by The Grafton Press 
Genealogical Department. 2 vols., 8vo., cloth, illustrated. 
Price $20.00. 

The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut. 2 
vols., folio, doth, gilt top, uncut. Price $25.00 net. 

Tryphena Ely White's Journal. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, 
250 copies. Price $1.00 net. 

Vestry Book of Saint Peter's Parish, New Kent County, 
Virginia. 8vo, 242 pages, cloth. Price 5.00 net. 

Note: The cost oj delivering all net books is payable by the purchaser. 

The Grafton Prf^s, Genealogical Editors and 

PUBUSHERS, 70 FIFTH AVENUE, NeW York. 



Grafton Genealogies and Histories 

A History of Amherst College, Regular edition, 12mo, 
cloth, illustrated. Price $1.50 (postage 15 cents). Special 
edition, only 100 printed. 8vo, cloth, hand-made paper and 
signed by the author. Price $10.00 net. 

Armorial Families. One volume, folio, bound in buck- 
ram, with gilt top. Price, fourth edition, $40.00 net. Fifth 
edition, $50.00 net. 

The Blood Royal of Britain. In one volume, foho, 650 
pages. Japanese Vellum, $50.00 net. 

The Brewster Genealogy. Two volumes, 8vo, cloth, 500 
pages each, illustrated. Price, before publication, $10.00 net, 
per set. 

British Family names: Their Origin and Meaning. 
8vo, cloth, $4.00 net. 

William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Illustrated. 100 copies 
for America. Price $10.00 net. 

The Chaffee Genealogy. 8vo, cloth, illustrated. Price 
$10.00 net. 

Bioigraphical Memorial of Daniel Butterfield. 

Colonial Families of the United States. Svo, cloth, only 
500 copies, $15.00 net. 

In Olde Connecticut. 12mo, cloth, gilt top. Price $1 .25 net. 

The Ancestry of Leander Howard Crall. Quarto, cloth, 
with numerous illustrations. Price $30.00 net. 

Derby Genealogy. Octavo, cloth. Price $4.00. 

Grafton Chart Index. The Chart Index alone, 50 cents 
net; 12 copies for $5.50. The Chart Index, Cover, and 
Notebook, $1.25; 12 copies for $13.00. Additional sections 
of the notebook, 25 cents net; 12 copies for $2.50. 

History of the Brigham Family. Svo, cloth, gilt top, 
$10.00 net. 

Historic Hadley, Massachusetts. 12mo, cloth, illus- 
trated. Price $1.00 net. 

Chronicle of Henry Vlllth. Two volumes, large octavo, 
with pliotogravure frontispieces, buckram, gilt top. 100 sets 
for sale in America. Price $12.00 net. 

The Hills Family in America. Svo, cloth, gilt top. Price 
$8.00 net. 

Arms and Pedigree of Kingdon-Gould of New York. 
Quarto, boards. Price $10.00 net. Full levant, $25.00 net. 

How to Decipher and Study Old Manuscripts. 12mo, 
cloth. Price $2.25 net. 

The Jacobite Peerage. Small folio, canvas, gilt top, 
thirty copies for America. Price $15.00 net. 

Note : The cost oj delivering all net books is payable by the purchaser. 

The Grafton Press, Genealogtcal Editors and 
Publishers, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York 



)UL 2 ^307 



